


Stronger Than I Ever Knew

by mandeebobandee



Series: Hogwarts Havoc [11]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-10-11 09:36:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 40
Words: 40,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20543996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandeebobandee/pseuds/mandeebobandee
Summary: With the threat lurking closer than it ever has, will our heroes get out unscathed?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As I mentioned at the end of the last installment, this will be a shorter chapter than my usual chapters. The next day or two may have shorter chapters as well; we'll see. Thank you guys for understanding, and hope you enjoy!

Virgil, Logan, and Dee were at a loss.  
  
By no means did Virgil think that their visit to Patton and Roman would solve everything, but he never would have expected it to get _this_ bad.  
  
It made no sense to Virgil. Why would Patton put so much of himself into a wedding only to push Roman away at the last moment?  
  
_"Perhaps we should contact Patton?"_ Logan suggested.  
  
Virgil awkwardly patted Roman on the shoulder, unsure what else to do. He couldn't offer much in the way of support when he was just as blindsided by this as Roman was.  
  
_"I don't...I don't know if that will do anything. What if that just pushes him away further?!"_ Roman lamented.  
  
_"Patton loves you. Why would it push him away further?"_ Logan arched a brow.  
  
Roman sniffed. _"Did...did he, though? I...then why did he...I don't understand."_  
  
_"Stop being an idiot,"_ Dee snapped.  
  
Virgil, Logan, and even Roman glanced over at him in shock.  
  
_"I highly doubt that language like that is going to assist Roman in any way,"_ Logan frowned.  
  
_"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know that you wanted Roman to continue operating under the mistaken impression that Patton broke up with him because he didn't care! My mistake,"_ Dee retorted.  
  
_"Then...then why did he break up with me?"_ Roman wondered. _"I don't-"_  
  
_"Would he have put so much of himself into this wedding if he didn't care?"_ Dee pointed out.  
  
_"I..."_ Roman trailed off, clearly unsure of what to say in response to that.  
  
The realization hit Virgil all at once. He hurriedly typed his statement into his phone and pressed play. "He was afraid."  
  
_"Afraid?"_ Roman repeated. _"Afraid of what?"_  
  
"I don't know," Virgil admitted.  
  
_"Well that's helpful,"_ Dee said with a snort.  
  
_"More helpful than allowing Roman to continue to operate under the false assumption that Patton does not care for him,"_ Logan replied.  
  
_"What are you getting at?"_ Dee pressed Logan.  
  
_"The chances of Patton breaking up with Roman because he no longer cares for Roman are, quite frankly, infinitesimal,"_ Logan responded.  
  
_"Then how do you explain this?"_ Roman peered upward in confusion.  
  
_"Consider this - Less than a fortnight ago, we came to the two of you with one goal in mind - allowing you the chance to relax in the midst of your busy schedule with the wedding. Patton was willing to work himself to the point of exhaustion for this wedding. Would a man who does not care for the man that he is to marry go to those lengths for him?"_ Logan argued.

_"Couldn't have said it any better myself,"_ Dee smirked.  
  
Virgil arched an eyebrow at that. Did Dee just spur Logan to argue in defense of Dee's earlier statement without Logan knowing it?  
  
_"You could have, you just wanted me to do the work for you,"_ Logan replied.  
  
...well at least Logan was calling him out on it.  
  
_"That said, we still do not have an answer as to why Patton opted for the choice that he did. I think we can safely presume that it was not a decision made lightly on his part,"_ Logan deduced.

"What do we do now?" Virgil asked. "We need to figure out what's going on with Patton that pushed him to this point."

_"Well, that leaves us with only one option, doesn't it?"_ Logan replied.  
  
_"And what is that?"_ Roman sniffed.  
  
_"We talk to Patton, and we don't stop until we have an answer,"_ Logan announced.

Which was easier said than done, as they thought they were heading in the right direction the last time they spoke with him...


	2. Chapter 2

Virgil knew that something was wrong the moment he stepped into the flat that Roman and Patton shared.  
  
_Used_ to share.  
  
It was concerning enough when they knocked on the door to no response. Fortunately Roman had a key. Unfortunately, it didn't take long for them to work out that the reason Patton was not home was that he no longer _called_ this home. The four crowded around the letter that Patton left on the table, reading it.  
  
_Dear Roman,_  
  
I'm sorry for this. I don't want you to think that any of this is your fault, or that I am no longer in love with you. I assure you that that isn't the case! I do still love you, but that's why I have to leave.  
  
Logan frowned. _"He has to leave because he loves Roman? That makes little sense-"_ he began, but Dee shushed him before he could go any further with his statement.  
  
_"Do keep talking, that isn't distracting the rest of us from reading at all,"_ Dee hissed.  
  
Logan rolled his eyes, but continued to read silently along with the rest of them.

_The longer I'm close to you, the more danger you'll be in. You'll be safer away from me. Trust me, this is for the best._  
  
All my love,  
  
Patton  
  
The silence after this was nearly unbearable. Virgil suspected that he was not the only one present who simultaneously wanted to say something, but didn't know _what_ to say.   
  
_"He...I don't get it. He thinks I'm in danger because of him?"_ Roman asked in a small, barely audible voice. Virgil reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder.  
  
_"I admit, I'm uncertain as to how he reached that conclusion. If anything, given your family's penchant for the Dark Arts and their actions against someone they thought was Patton in the past, one could accurately say that_ he _is in danger because of you,"_ Logan pointed out.  
  
Roman gasped as if stricken then buried his face in his hands once more.  
  
_"...boy Logan, you sure do know what to say to make someone feel better, don't?"_ Dee rolled his eyes. _"Accio tissues,"_ he called out, pointing his wand toward the living room. Virgil ducked out of the way of a flying box of tissues, which Dee caught with his hand and held in front of Roman.  
  
_"Thanks,"_ Roman sniffed and grabbed one, blowing his nose loudly. _"But Logan isn't wrong."_  
  
_"Is he necessarily right, though?"_ Dee countered.  
  
"Does it matter?" Virgil interjected. Dee, Logan, and Roman all glanced in his direction. Great, they expected more from him. As long as they were cool with waiting the minute or so it would take for Virgil to type out his response so that he could use his phone to translate it into speech...  
  
_There we go,_ Virgil thought as he input the last part of his statement, then hit play. "It doesn't matter whether Logan is wrong or right about Patton being in danger because of Roman. That much didn't matter to Patton, so it shouldn't matter to any of us. What matters is that Patton, for some reason, thinks that his being around Roman puts Roman in danger. I don't understand why he thinks this, but I have a feeling that whatever is bothering him has been bothering him for a while. I don't think this is about the wedding at all."  
  
_"So you're saying he focused on the wedding so that we would think that he was fussing about the wedding, rather than whatever was truly bothering him? A cover up of sorts?"_ Logan surmised.   
  
_"A mask,"_ Dee murmured. _"Didn't Virgil's prophecy say something along the lines of 'soon the masks will be ripped from those who hide in the shadows'?"_  
  
"You're not suggesting Patton is evil, are you?" Virgil asked. He may not be able to convey much through tone due to his reliance on text to speech, but the glower that accompanied this statement said _more_ than enough.  
  
_"Do you honestly think 'those who hide in the shadows' only refers to those who are evil? Couldn't anyone hiding something be considered to be 'hiding in the shadows'?"_ Dee retorted.  
  
_"Dee makes a fair point,"_ Logan noted.  
  
"Okay, but that's only part of the prophecy. The other part talked about how it may be too late to do anything and that irreparable damage may be done," Virgil replied. "Do you really want this prophecy to be about Patton?"  
  
_"I..."_ Dee frowned, furrowing his brow. He'd been so focused on arguing in support of his theory that he hadn't even considered what his theory might mean overall.  
  
Either way, Virgil was certain that they had their work cut out for them. Whether the subject of the prophecy turned out to be Patton or not, Virgil could only hope that it wasn't too late to fix things.  
  
_It's 'may', not 'is',_ he reminded himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it's almost to the length that these chapters normally are this time around! Just got back home a few hours ago, so hopefully we'll be back to normal length by tomorrow!


	3. Chapter 3

And here Virgil thought he was worried for Patton when all he'd done was break up with Roman and move out of their shared flat.  
  
They checked with Patton's family, who were just as surprised to hear about what happened as Virgil, Dee, and Logan were. They checked with Elliott, Shane, Chelsea, Astrit, Era, and Paige - none of them heard from Patton either.  
  
Perhaps the most worrying news came from the Magical Menagerie. They _did_ have new information regarding Patton, but none of it was very reassuring.  
  
_"He turned in his resignation. Said he didn't think it was a good fit for him after all,"_ the manager admitted.  
  
_"If he were to apply again, would you consider allowing him to return to his position?"_ Logan wondered.  
  
_"I would have no reason not to. Aside from this abrupt resignation, he has always been a model employee,"_ he frowned.

A model employee. A great son/brother. A beloved fiance. A wonderful friend.  
  
What _happened_?  
  
What was going on with Patton that he decided to just...up and vanish? _Had_ he actually vanished? Was this a kidnapping? But that made little sense; how could he have handed in his resignation if he was kidnapped? Then again, he supposed Patton's kidnapper could have sent him inside with instructions to hand in his letter of resignation and head back outside, lest Roman wind up hurt.  
  
...did Victoria and Edward want to finish the job that they initially _thought_ they'd accomplished the night Virgil's friends came to rescue him from his father's enchantments? Did they want to finish off Patton for good?!  
  
_Jeez, grim much?_ Virgil thought to himself, trying to get a handle on his thoughts before they spiraled too far out of his grasp. He doubted it was anything _that_ crazy.  
  
Then again...Patton disappeared, and they weren't any closer to any sort of concrete reason as to _why_. Of course his mind was getting carried away, he was desperate for answers!  
  
_"Where could he even have gone to?"_ Dee wondered.  
  
"What if he can't come back?" Virgil asked. The other three glanced at him in surprise. Was Virgil _really_ the only one who considered that Patton's disappearance may not have been voluntary?  
  
_"What do you mean?"_ Roman questioned, a faint note of panic seeping into his tone.  
  
"I mean he might not have left by choice," Virgil elaborated.  
  
_"He set out a note for Roman and hand-delivered his resignation to his manager at Magical Menagerie,"_ Logan observed.  
  
_"And forgeries and threats do not exist?"_ Dee countered.  
  
_"You think someone took him?"_ Roman gasped.  
  
_"It is a possibility that we should consider, admittedly. It is a highly implausible scenario given the evidence we've seen thus far, but improbable is not the same as impossible,"_ Logan noted.  
  
_May, not is,_ Virgil thought, immediately reminded of this mantra that crossed his mind so often as of late.  
  
Admittedly, in this case he hoped that he was wrong.  
  
By the time they returned to the flat that night, they felt as if they had more questions than answers.

And Virgil didn't feel right returning to the flat. It didn't matter whether Patton left voluntarily or against his will; the longer they took to locate Patton, the harder it might be to find him.

_"There is only so much that we can do, Virgil,"_ Logan reminded him.

Virgil did not want to accept that. He _knew_ that something was wrong. "If Patton's in danger, we need to help him!"

_"This is not, as some may say, my first rodeo,"_ Logan told Virgil. Virgil arched an eyebrow at that.

_"I would have worked myself to exhaustion trying to find you, were it not for our friends,"_ Logan confessed, his voice barely above a whisper. Virgil froze. Logan was right, this _wasn't_ his first rodeo. Logan was all too familiar with this peculiar feeling of helplessness, and Virgil was one of the ones responsible for it the first time around.

"I'm sorry," Virgil replied.

_"It wasn't your fault,"_ Logan assured him.

"I wasn't even _trying_ to get home," Virgil reminded him.

_"Because your father's manipulations led you to believe that you _were _home,"_ Logan replied. _"The blame for that hardly lies with you. That being said,"_ Logan cleared his throat. _"Had I not taken the time to care for my own well-being at our friends' insistence, I would have only sabotaged my own rescue efforts. By caring for myself, I was able to maintain a clearer head."_

"And that clearer head allowed you to make observations that you might have missed otherwise," Virgil concluded. 

Logan nodded in agreement.

"But it still feels like we're wasting valuable time," Virgil frowned.

Logan nodded once more. _"It does, and I refuse to lie and pretend that it gets better, because it does not. In fact, I would venture to say it grows more difficult with time."_

"That's reassuring." Virgil was not able to convey his sarcasm through his tone, as text to speech did not have a 'sarcastic' voice (someone really ought to fix that), but the snort that accompanied this statement was enough to convey the message regardless.

_"Would you rather I lie to you? I admit, that is not my forte, but I could always fetch your brother,"_ Logan proposed.

The corners of Virgil's mouth twitched upward momentarily at that comment, though quickly fell as he let out a sigh. "I don't feel right sitting around if Patton's hurt or in danger."

_"I don't either,"_ Logan admitted. _"But we need to be well-rested so that we can offer our best efforts toward the search for Patton."_

Virgil supposed that Logan made a good point. They needed to find Patton, but they could not sacrifice their own well-being and focus _solely_ on the search. Virgil was certain of _one_ thing, though - If this was bothering _him_ this much, he could only imagine how helpless Roman felt.

And Roman _did_ feel helpless, just not for the reason that Virgil suspected. In fact, Roman did not know of Patton's disappearance at all. He only knew that Delilah had grown a _lot_ more chipper as of late, and that never boded well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back to my typical length again, yay!


	4. Chapter 4

Virgil didn't sleep well that night.  
  
Patton was a recurrent figure in his dreams, but none of his dreams pertaining to Patton were particularly pleasant. Patton was in some sort of danger in every single danger.  
  
The most haunting nightmare was the one Virgil had shortly before waking up for the morning.  
  
In that dream, Patton was kidnapped by several masked figures. The figures revealed their masks one by one. Victoria and Edward were first, leering down at Patton with wicked grins. Next was Roman's brother Phillip. After Phillip, however, the reveals grew stranger and stranger.  
  
The next figure to remove his mask was James, then _Linus_. The last person to remove their mask...the sight sent chills down Virgil's spine.  
  
That was _his face_.  
  
_"No, please..."_ Patton pleaded as the figures grew closer. Virgil noted that the figure resembling himself hung behind. He was not part of the advancing group, but he did nothing to _stop_ the advance either.  
  
Patton's gaze turned to Virgil. Not the figure that _resembled_ Virgil, but Virgil _proper_, the one witnessing all of this unfold. _"Virgil, help me please..."_  
  
But Virgil was frozen in shock, unable to provide any sort of help, and the figure that resembled him showed no inclination to help Patton either.  
  
_"Please, Virgil, do something!"_ Patton shouted as Edward pulled out his wand and pointed it at Patton. Victoria, Phillip, and James began to laugh, their faces distorting. The worst, though, was that Virgil's doppleganger not only joined in, but made eye contact with Patton and gave a nonchalant shrug as if to say 'too bad, so sad'.  
  
_"PLEASE!"_ Patton screamed.  
  
_"Avada Kedavra!"_ Edward snarled, his face twisting in savage delight as a green light burst forth from his wand and Patton stopped moving instantly.

Virgil jolted awake. He sat up in bed, clutching at his chest. His heart was racing so fast that it felt as if it would burst forth from his chest at any moment.  
  
He peered around the room, trying to regain his bearings. By now he recognized that he'd had a nightmare, but it was taking his body a while to catch up with this realization, and he was still in full on flight or fight mode.  
  
He chewed on his bottom lip as he stared down at Logan's form, debating whether or not it was worth waking him up for this.  
  
Fortunately for Virgil, the decision was already made for him. Virgil's movements jostled Logan awake, and Logan peered up at him bleary eyed. Logan didn't stay in that state for long, as he quickly recognized that Virgil was in distress and sat up at once. _"Virgil?"_  
  
"I...had a nightmare," Virgil managed to spit out. When Logan stared back at him confusion, Virgil recalled that Logan wouldn't understand him. _Duh, how did you forget that, stupid?_ Virgil chastised himself mentally. He grabbed for his phone on the nightstand next to his bed, trying to type out his message to Logan.  
  
But his fingers wouldn't stop shaking enough for him to type properly, and he felt like throwing his phone in frustration.  
  
_"Virgil. Virgil! It's okay, you don't have to tell me right now, you can tell me later. Right now let's focus on you, alright?"_ Logan's voice was smooth, _calm_, and Virgil found himself clinging on to it like a lifeline.

_"I'm here. You're in your mother's flat. You're safe,"_ Logan assured him.  
  
Virgil let out a snort. Of course _he_ was safe. His own safety wasn't what he was worried about, and no matter how hard Logan tried, he couldn't assure Virgil that _Patton_ was safe. Logan said it himself the night before - He wasn't the best at _lying_, and Logan would have to flat out lie in order to tell Virgil that Patton was fine, because they had _no way of knowing that_, and...  
  
_"Virgil, think of five things you can see. Do not name them, merely think of them and lift one finger for each item that you think of,"_ Logan asked.  
  
Virgil tried to focus on the objects around him rather than his own inner turmoil. He saw Charlotte in her cage, a book on the desk next to her cage, the chair in front of the desk, the phone in his hand, and the sheets on the bed. Virgil lifted one finger for each item that popped into his head.  
  
_"Good,"_ Logan responded. His even voice was a life preserver in the stormy sea that was Virgil's mind, and Virgil reached for it with all of his might.  
  
Logan lead him through the rest of the exercise, and it grew easier for Virgil to focus as time passed. By the time they were on the last part of the exercise - something Virgil could _smell_ \- there was considerable improvement. He still trembled, and he still felt a tad lightheaded, but he no longer felt the sensation of impending doom crashing in on him from all sides.

He _was_ aware, on the other hand, of the fact that he'd started _crying _at some point during his freak out_._ _That_ was embarrassing.  
  
Especially since he was _never_ in any sort of danger. _Patton_ was in danger, and Logan was focusing on _Virgil_. Shame washed over Virgil, and he let out a shaky sigh.  
  
He was letting Patton down, just like in the dream.  
  
_"What happened?"_ Logan wondered.  
  
Virgil typed his response into his phone. A slight tremor remained in his hands, but he was able to type nevertheless. "Had a nightmare. No big."  
  
_"...Virgil, I realize you are inclined toward self-deprecation, but that was not 'no big',"_ Logan replied, a hint of exasperation in his tone.  
  
"Several nightmares," Virgil confessed. "All about Patton."  
  
Logan frowned. Virgil proceeded to tell Logan _everything_, including what occured in his most recent nightmare prior to waking.  
  
_"As you well know, I cannot offer false platitudes,"_ Logan began. As dour as it sounded, the fact that Logan wasn't going to _lie_ to him and pretend that everything was alright was oddly comforting.  
  
_"That said,"_ Logan continued. _"You are not the only one plagued by nightmares concerning Patton. I experienced one myself earlier in the night. What I can assure you is that we need to do everything in our power to find him. We will pool our resources and recruit as many people as we can. I cannot assure you that we will find him, but we will do everything we can to attempt to do so."_  
  
And no, it wasn't what Virgil _wanted_ to hear, but it was what Virgil _needed_ to hear. He felt helpless, and Logan gave him something to focus on. There was a lot that they could _not_ control, but Logan pointed out what they _could_.


	5. Chapter 5

The group met up the next day at Renilda's flat, piling into the room that Virgil and Logan shared. Everyone was present aside from Era and Astrit, and even _they_ arranged a flight to the UK to join their friends as soon as possible.  
  
Virgil and Logan sat on the edge of their bed. Roman sat in the chair at the desk, deep in thought. Elliott stood with their back against the wall, while Paige and Chelsea shared the windowsill. Dee laid across the floor, currently cooing to Samantha, who he'd brought to the meeting as well. Shane, who sat with his back against the wall next to Elliott, eyed Samantha warily.  
  
_"Are you afraid of snakes?"_ Paige wondered.  
  
_"No, not at all! They just, uh..."_ Shane jumped when Dee sat up, lifting the snake and placing it around his shoulders. _"How do you..."_ Shane gaped at the sight.  
  
_"What? Would you like to hold her?"_ Dee smirked, removing Samantha from his shoulders and holding her out to Shane.  
  
Shane let out a yelp and drew his legs in as close as he could.  
  
Chelsea let out a laugh. _"Not afraid of snakes my ass."_  
  
Logan cleared his throat. _"As entertaining as this is, we are gathered here today for an important reason."_  
  
Everyone sobered at that, even Dee and Shane (though Shane still continued to eye Samantha on occasion to make sure she wasn't slithering too close to him).  
  
_"You still haven't heard anything from Patton?"_ Paige frowned, looking troubled.  
  
Roman shook his head. _"Nothing. It's as if he vanished into thin air!"_  
  
_"He must not want to be found,"_ Elliott observed.  
  
_"Or_ someone _doesn't want him found,"_ Chelsea added conspiratorially.  
  
_"You think he might have been kidnapped?"_ Shane frowned.  
  
_"Wouldn't be the first time that happened to one of us, would it?"_ Elliott admitted in a wry tone. _"And you gotta admit that it doesn't really seem like Patton to just up and disappear like this of his own volition."_  
  
_"It could be if he thought his presence was a danger to Roman, though,"_ Paige frowned. _"You said he left a note saying that, right? I don't know what would make him think that, if someone was sending him threats or something, but Patton would do just about anything to prevent someone he cares about from getting hurt, even if it hurts him in the process."_  
  
Virgil, on the other hand, could not shake his recollection of the nightmares he had the night before. "What if he was kidnapped, though?"  
  
_"Virgil's right,"_ Roman spoke, oddly distant. It was as if his mind was half present, and half somewhere else entirely. _"If Patton's been kidnapped, I don't think we should be sitting around waiting for him to come back. We need to do something to help him!"_  
  
_"But what if he hasn't been kidnapped?"_ Dee countered. _"Wouldn't that lead to us chasing a phantom and wasting valuable time that we could use to locate Patton?"_  
  
_Dammit_, why couldn't they just narrow it down?!  
  
_"Can we even think of anyone who would kidnap Patton? The guy's one of the sweetest guys I ever met, why would someone go after him?"_ Paige frowned.  
  
_"That may be exactly why someone did go after him. They may have figured he wouldn't put up much of a fight,"_ Chelsea suggested.  
  
_"Or they may wish to finish a task they attempted to complete months ago,"_ Logan interjected.  
  
The others fell silent at that.  
  
_"And just what is that supposed to mean?"_ Roman blurted out.

"Your family," Virgil clarified.  
  
Roman flinched slightly at those words before clenching his hands into fists. Virgil could hardly blame him for that. _"You think they may have Patton?"_ he questioned.  
  
_"It is certainly a possibility that we should take into consideration,"_ Logan replied.  
  
_"Question is, how do we find out if he's there or not?"_ Paige frowned.  
  
_"We break in, duh. We did it once at Thompson Manor, didn't we?"_ Chelsea suggested.  
  
_"Yes, and I suspect that their defenses will be much higher this time around, especially if they do have Patton captive. It would be foolish of them not to learn from their mistakes, and as much as I enjoy deriding them, I do not believe that underestimating them will do us any favors,"_ Logan countered.  
  
_"Plus, no one even knew that you guys knew where Virgil was when you went to rescue him, did they?"_ Shane pointed out.  
  
_"Nope, we caught them completely off guard. The looks on their faces when they realized,"_ Chelsea snickered.  
  
"We won't have that advantage this time around," Virgil noted.  
  
_"Shit, you're right. If they have Patton, they have to know that we know that he's missing and that they'd be one of the prime suspects,"_ Elliott realized.  
  
_"Roman got us in once before so that we could track James to Thompson Manor. You think you could do it again?"_ Chelsea asked.  
  
Roman shook his head. _"No, I don't think so. I was disowned, remember?"_  
  
_"Weren't you disowned before too?"_ Paige pointed out.  
  
_"Yes, but mere months before the incident in question, and they clearly saw no reason to put up any extra defenses at that point if I was able to waltz right in,"_ Roman said with a snort.  
  
_"They underestimated us in that instance,"_ Logan smirked.  
  
"But we can't assume that will happen twice," Virgil added. Logan nodded in agreement.

_"We can't just let Patton languish, though! What if they're hurting him? What if they kill him before we can get to him?!"_ Roman sounded almost frantic at this point.

Virgil couldn't blame him. They were in a terrible situation. If they acted and they were wrong, they could make the situation even worse. If they _didn't_ act and Patton was truly in danger, they were wasting precious time.  
  
_"Well, that gives us only one option, doesn't it?"_ Chelsea responded.  
  
_"What's that?"_ Roman blinked.  
  
They could only hope that they would find their proof in time...  
  
_"We need to find proof. Then we can act,"_ she declared.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for some pretty frightening intrusive thoughts

Virgil read over Patton's note to Roman for what felt like the thousandth time, trying to look for clues that he might have missed the _other_ 999 times that he read it.  
  
Unsurprisingly, nothing new leapt out at him. Virgil even tried reading over his prophecy to see if it contained any hints.  
  
He wasn't the only one.  
  
In fact, Logan took it a step further, going so far as to write down the dictionary definitions for every single word in the prophecy to see if the overall message could be interpreted in a way that they had yet to decipher.  
  
No such luck, though that wasn't a surprise when the prophecy was so vague in its meaning in the first place. Such was the nature of prophecies, Virgil was coming to find.  
  
Really, every prophecy could say 'you better watch out, you better watch out!' on repeat and it wouldn't be much less helpful than most of the prophecies Virgil and Era gave that _supposedly_ contained more valuable information.  
  
And looking back, the majority of their prophecies _did_ give a fair idea of something that followed - but hindsight was 20/20 (or perhaps it was hindSight in this instance). Of _course_ the meanings were obvious looking back, they had all of the information that they needed. More often than not, at the time Virgil and/or Era gave the prophecy, they lacked crucial information.  
  
So of course it would be too late by the time they figured out what the prophecy was about. Even Virgil's mantra of '_may_, not _is_' could not protect him from that.  
  
Neither he nor Logan could shake the idea that unseen forces were involved in Patton's disappearance, however.  
  
_"I refuse to believe that there is no foul play,"_ Logan admitted. _"Even if Patton left of his own volition, I do not believe that he would take such actions unless he were desperate."_  
  
"I agree," Virgil said through his phone, frowning.  
  
He jumped when his phone began to buzz.

Logan glanced over at once, puzzled. _"Who is calling?"_  
  
Virgil couldn't blame him for his confusion; Virgil primarily used his phone for the text to speech feature (though he had taken to this app called 'tumblr', finding amusement in what many of its users referred to as 'shitposts'). Only a few people had his phone number in their possession, and _all_ of them were friends of Virgil and Logan.  
  
Virgil looked down at his phone, toggling through different screens until he reached the one that he was looking for. He couldn't use text to speech while he was using his phone for other purposes, after all. Once he reached the screen that he wanted, he tilted his phone slightly so that Logan could see it.  
  
_"Ah, text. My mistake,"_ Logan amended.  
  
The text was from Chelsea. _"Meet at Roman and Patton's place pronto. Use Floo if you need to. We have a major lead."_  
  
Virgil and Logan exchanged wide-eyed glances. _"A lead? Already?"_ Logan gaped.  
  
Virgil was more concerned about the mention of Floo Powder. He quickly switched over to his text to speech program. "Do you think Floo Powder will work this way? Or does it only work with actual speech?"  
  
Logan shrugged. _"We have two options, I suppose. We could conduct an experiment to see if your text to speech program will work with Floo Powder, or we could use Side-Along Apparition to travel."_  
  
Virgil flinched. He didn't know which option would be better. There was a chance that something could go horribly wrong if the Floo Powder didn't work with his text to speech program, and they'd had multiple successes with Side Along Apparition.  
  
They'd also experienced a severe splinching.  
  
Thus there were risks inherent in _both_ methods of transportation, and all the while Logan waited for an answer, and Virgil didn't want to make the _wrong_ decision and have it come to bite him...  
  
Why was it so hard to make a decision sometimes?  
  
_"Virgil?"_ Logan asked. Of course Logan was growing impatient, it was taking Virgil forever to answer. Then again, Logan might not be growing impatient at all; that was merely an assumption on Virgil's part. Virgil would be growing impatient with himself if he were in Virgil's shoes, though.

Right. He was supposed to be answering Logan.

  
Virgil hastily typed his response into his phone, feeling rushed. Thus he typed the quickest answer that he could think of. "Floo."  
  
Merlin help him if that was the wrong choice...  
  
\-----------------

Patton didn't _want_ to leave Roman, or his friends or family.  
  
But the longer he stayed close to them, the greater the chances that something _horrible_ could happen to them.  
  
He couldn't...it wasn't _safe_ around them.  
  
_He_ wasn't safe.  
  
It started with nightmares. Patton hated to say it, but he longed for the days when the images that haunted him were confined _only_ to his nightmares. Instead, they filtered into _daydreams_.  
  
And the more he tried to fight them off, the worse they grew. Walking behind Roman in their house, Patton was besieged by the mental image of himself pushing Roman down the stairs. During his candlelight dinner with Roman, he pictured knocking over all of the candles and setting everything on fire. At work, he kept imagining _hurting_ the animals that he loved and cared for.  
  
What kind of Animal Healer did that? What kind of _person_ did that?  
  
There was only one explanation that Patton could think of - He was losing his mind, and he couldn't seem to do anything to _stop_ it.  
  
And if he was losing his mind...he had to protect his friends and family by getting as far away from them as he could _while_ he still could.  
  
Who knew what might happen otherwise?  
  
Patton fiddled with the beads on his bracelet, the one memento of Roman that he allowed himself to take with him. He wiped a few stray tears from his eyes, not noticing the faint green glow that emanated from the bracelet when he wasn't looking.


	7. Chapter 7

Virgil went to tell Renilda and Professor Picani where they were headed, while Logan went to fetch Dee.  
  
_"Let us know what happens. Send us an owl if you'll be a while,"_ Renilda told Virgil.  
  
_"An owl? Owls take too long. Just shoot me a text,"_ Professor Picani grinned.  
  
_"I suppose that works too. Perhaps I ought to invest in Muggle technology as well. What have I been missing out on for all of these years?"_ Renilda shook her head.  
  
_"To be fair, cell phones weren't that big when we were their age, even in the Muggle world,"_ Professor Picani noted.  
  
_"Well whatever you do, if this turns into a rescue mission, please let us know. I'd like to know if I need to delay dinner for a couple of hours,"_ Renilda told him with a wry grin.  
  
He knew that she was joking; there was no need to delay dinner on their account when they could easily throw something together themselves.

Virgil headed back to the living room, where Logan and Dee were waiting in front of the fireplace, the Floo Powder that his mother handed him in his grasp.  
  
Virgil tried not to focus on the possibility that things might go horribly wrong before they even began. For all of the doors that the text to speech option on his phone opened for him, the tool wasn't always ideal. He just hoped that this was _not_ one of those times.  
  
He really needed to get a handle on Apparition. "If you guys want to go ahead and Apparate without me, that's fine." Virgil said through his phone.  
  
_"If that's an option..."_ Dee saluted them before turning on the spot and Apparating away.  
  
_"Rude,"_ Logan huffed. _"He did not even say goodbye."_  
  
"We'll be seeing him in a few minutes anyway," Virgil replied. "Plus I did give you guys the option. You don't have to wait for me."  
  
_"I know that I do not have to stay here with you. I wish to do so,"_ Logan assured him. _"Now, would you like to go first or shall I? I would offer to go together but I do not believe that we will both fit into your mother's fireplace at once."_  
  
Virgil did not think they would either, and if they could travel by Floo simultaneously he wouldn't even have to worry about how text to speech might effect Floo (if at all).

But Virgil was 6 feet tall and Logan was only one inch shorter. It was already difficult enough for _one_ of them to fit in the fireplace at a time.  
  
...he was overthinking this again, wasn't he?  
  
Virgil motioned for Logan to go first. Logan nodded, taking a pinch of Floo Powder and tossing it into the fire. The fire turned a brilliant emerald color and Logan stepped into the fire, nodding to Virgil and mouthing 'good luck'._ "The house of Roman and Patton,"_ he announced, and the flames appeared to engulf him as he vanished.  
  
Virgil inhaled shakily, knowing that he would not have the opportunity to do so as freely once he stepped into the fire. He made certain that he already had the words he wanted to say typed, so that he could press play soon after stepping into the flames. He grabbed another pinch of Floo Powder and threw it onto the fire, the green reflected in his wide eyes as he stepped forward.  
  
Then he pressed play. "The house of Roman and Patton." A brief second passed where Virgil hardly dared to breath, fearing that nothing was going to happen or _worse_, that the flames would turn back into ordinary flames while he was standing in the midst of them.  
  
(Wouldn't that be just his luck?)

Instead, there was a loud _whoosh_ as the fire engulfed him, and Virgil closed his eyes as he felt the familiar sensation of being jerked this way and that.  
  
Relief flooded through him. _It worked._ Then again, he wasn't safely at Patton and Roman's yet, so perhaps it was a bit too early to celebrate. But the _Floo_ portion seemed to be working properly! He just had to make sure that he arrived at the correct fireplace when all was said and done.  
  
He felt himself coming to a halt, and opened his eyes. He stood in another fireplace. His stomach lurched as said fireplace did not look familiar to him, but then he realized that Patton and Roman's _fireplace_ wouldn't look familiar to him because he'd never seen their fireplace from the inside before. He did a quick scan of the room to see if _it_ looked familiar, and relief immediately flooded through him as he recognized Roman and Patton's living room. He hastily stepped out of the fire, as he did not want to risk the fire returning to normal while he was still standing inside of it.  
  
As it turned out, he jumped out in the nick of time, as the emerald flames switched back to orange less than thirty seconds after he exited them.

He was greeted by Logan, who stood to the side with a grin on his face. _"The experiment was a success, I see."_  
  
Virgil chuckled. "You're such a nerd." Though he could not add a teasing inflection to his tone through his phone, his fond smile would doubtlessly convey the message regardless.  
  
Dee stood in the opposite corner of the room around the corner._"Took you long enough. I began to wonder if you were coming at all."_  
  
Virgil and Logan exchanged glances, both rolling their eyes.  
  
_"Oh good, you guys are here!"_ Chelsea called, peering into the room from the doorway. _"Come in the kitchen and we'll fill you guys in."_  
  
Virgil noted that Chelsea looked a bit antsy, and he wondered what that said about whatever news she and the others were about to share.  
  
Virgil, Logan, and Dee entered the room where the others were waiting. Shane, Elliott, and Paige were already there, as were Era and Astrit. Roman was the one who caught Virgil's attention the most, as he tightly gripped a slip of paper in his hands.  
  
Chelsea turned to him at once. _"Do you want to tell them or should I?"_  
  
Roman cleared his throat. _"I've...this is a letter."_ Roman's expression was grave, and Virgil knew that this did _not_ bode well. He took in a deep breath as if to steel himself. _"Its from my parents."_


	8. Chapter 8

It turned out that Virgil was correct - A letter from Roman's parents _never_ boded well, no matter what the subject matter of said letter was.  
  
Unless Roman's family had a sudden change of heart? But given how unlikely _that_ was, it would still be extraordinarily suspicious if that were the subject of the letter.  
  
Chelsea's text suggested that they had a lead, though, and Virgil suspected that said lead _was_ the letter.  
  
_"Well? What does it say?"_ Dee asked.  
  
Roman flinched slightly, then took another moment to steel himself.  
  
_Whatever it says, it can't be good,_ Virgil thought to himself. _Not if Roman's acting like that._  
  
_"It's about Patton,"_ Roman admitted.  
  
_"Did they take Patton?"_ Era wondered, eying Roman with a concerned expression.  
  
_"I don't know, they don't outright say that they have him, but they say that I'll never see him again unless I agree not to marry him!"_ Roman blurted out, sounding as though he were near tears.  
  
_"That sure makes it sound like they have him,"_ Elliott noted. _"How else would they be able to guarantee that you won't see him again?"_  
  
_"That doesn't make sense,"_ Astrit said with a frown. He had a growth spurt over the summer, Virgil noticed.  
  
_"What doesn't make sense?"_ Paige wondered.  
  
_"That they would just send out a letter threatening Roman,"_ Astrit clarified. _"When they killed James they thought he was Patton, right? Why not just kill him if they have him?"_  
  
_"Do you think honestly think this is unrelated?!"_ Chelsea stared. _"Patton goes missing, then the Princes send Roman a threatening letter like that?"_  
  
_"I'm not saying that its unrelated, I'm saying that it sounds weird,"_ Astrit retorted. _"If they do have him, there has to be a reason they're keeping him alive this time when they were so eager to dispose of him before?"_  
  
_"Blackmail?"_ Dee suggested.  
  
_"Or maybe they want to utterly demoralize me before they deal the last blow!"_ Roman snapped.  
  
_"Or that,"_ Dee shrugged.  
  
Virgil wasn't sure how to respond to that. He understood that Roman utterly despised his parents and everything that they stood for, but...there was something _strange_ in Roman's eyes as he said it. Something Virgil never saw in Roman's eyes before, and it unsettled him greatly.  
  
But he couldn't determine what it was.

_"The final blow? That's a bit harsh, isn't it?"_ Shane's eyes were wide.  
  
_"Considering they tried to_ murder _him in front of me in the past? Ohhohoho no, nothing is too harsh for them!"_ Roman snarled.  
  
_"We need to decide our next course of action,"_ Logan declared.  
  
Roman looked at him as if he had two heads. Then, much to Virgil's surprise, he started to _laugh_. _"Decide?_ Decide? _We don't have time to decide!"_  
  
_"I assure you, we have time to deliberate. If we do not take the time to do so, we may make a grave error-"_ Logan insisted, but Roman cut him off.  
  
_"Exactly!"_ Roman shouted.  
  
Everyone, including Roman and Logan, fell silent as they realized what Roman said.  
  
_"Exactly?"_ Dee raised an eyebrow.  
  
Roman let out a huff. _"Oh, you know what I mean,"_ he said, waving his hand.

"No, we don't," Virgil responded through his phone.  
  
Virgil knew he didn't imagine it this time. Roman cast a bewildered glance in Virgil's direction, but for a split second his eyes were narrowed, belying how he _truly_ felt. He was angry at Virgil and the others.  
  
But why? Why would he be angry if it was just a simple mistake?  
  
Unless it _wasn't_ a mistake.  
  
_"What are you saying, Virgil?"_ Roman frowned.  
  
_"Wow, you're really nailing the lost puppy look,"_ Dee said with a snort.  
  
_"Lost puppy look? I don't know what you mean!"_ Roman protested.  
  
_"Right. You know, I gave you the benefit of the doubt in the ferris wheel,"_ Dee began. There was no sarcasm in his tone this time.  
  
_"The benefit of the doubt? I don't know what you're talking about,"_ Roman frowned.  
  
_"And they call me the liar here,"_ Dee scoffed. _"I saw you smiling on the ferris wheel."_  
  
Roman let out a snicker. _"I smiled? Because I happened to smile for a split second during something horrifying, that makes me a bad person?"_  
  
_"Hence my hesitation to bring it up. But you've been behaving strangely since then,"_ Dee noted. _"Also, I find it incredibly suspicious that you smiled at the exact moment that a group of Muggle healers walked by with a woman on a stretcher."_  
  
Roman let out a derisive snort.  
  
_"What?"_ Dee glared.  
  
_"I thought you were on our side, Dee. But it turns out that you're still as fiendish as always. Once a liar, always a liar, am I right?"_ Roman folded his arms across his chest.  
  
_"Yes, this conversation is already fraught enough without accusations that cannot be proven as fact,"_ Logan stated sternly.  
  
Logan might as well have punched Dee in the face for the look of betrayal and dismay that crossed Dee's features at Logan's words.  
  
"I believe him," Virgil announced through his phone.  
  
Logan turned to Virgil with a frown. _"It is not that I do not believe Dee-"_  
  
_"Yet you do believe that I am making accusations that cannot be proven as fact?"_ Dee arched an eyebrow.  
  
_"I was simply trying to focus on the matter at hand, I was not suggesting that your accusations were false!"_ Logan protested.  
  
"I saw something weird too," Virgil admitted. Of course, the attention turned to him at once with _those_ words.  
  
_"Oh you did, did you?"_ Roman's tone was unmistakably accusatory, and Virgil nearly flinched back. He hadn't heard Roman speak to him in such a tone for years.  
  
_Something was not right, he should have said something sooner..._  
  
"Patton was talking about someone with a broken nose on the ferris wheel. I thought I saw Roman grinning, but then I looked again and he wasn't so I thought I imagined it. But I don't think I did," Virgil told them.

_"What exactly are you saying, Virgil?"_ Roman asked, venom dripping from his tone.  
  
The alarm bells in Virgil's head were positively _blaring_ at this point.  
  
What if the others didn't believe him, though? _What if he was wrong?_  
  
_"He's saying that you're acting strange,"_ Chelsea spoke up.  
  
_"And he's far from the only one,"_ Era agreed.  
  
Virgil chanced a glance upward, watching as the Elliott and Shane nodded in agreement. Paige looked horrified, Logan looked contemplative, and Astrit looked suspicious.

Dee looked downright _furious_.

"Roman" wasn't going to weasel his way out of this one.


	9. Chapter 9

Virgil glanced to Roman, anxiously awaiting his response. He realized that he was genuinely _afraid_ of what Roman would do next.  
  
He didn't expect Roman to start _laughing_ and clapping his hands together. _"Oh, this is absolutely_ adorable _to witness!"_  
  
This response was so utterly bizarre that Virgil gaped at Roman as if he'd never seen the former Gryffindor before in his life. If he didn't know any better, he would say that Roman seemed like an entirely different person!  
  
_"What the hell is wrong with you?"_ Elliott looked positively disgusted with Roman.  
  
_"What the hell is wrong with me? What the hell is wrong with you?!"_ Roman said, continuing to laugh.  
  
_"This all began the day we went into Muggle London,"_ Logan realized.  
  
_"Oh? Do tell, Logan!"_ Roman gestured for Logan to continue.  
  
_"Both of the incidents that Virgil and Dee refer to occurred on the day that we visited the ferris wheel,"_ Logan explained.  
  
_"Is that all?"_ Roman mimed yawning. _"Yeah, no, not convinced, sorry!"_  
  
_"As a matter of fact, that is_ not _all,"_ Logan asserted. _"The day that the incident with the ferris wheel occured is also the day that you disappeared for an inordinate amount of time, to the point where we were about to send out a search party to determine where you went."_  
  
Virgil's eyes went wide. Logan was _right_, Roman _disappeared_...  
  
_"Finite Incantatem!"_ Chelsea shouted, hitting Roman before he could even react.  
  
Nothing happened. Roman shot an incredulous glance Chelsea's way and began to snicker. _"Was that supposed to accomplish something?"_  
  
Chelsea's eyes were wide. _"I don't get it, I thought..."_  
  
_"I admit that I did as well,"_ Logan frowned, studying Roman. _"It appears that the imposter is not using any form of spell or potion - for instance, the Polyjuice Potion - to alter his appearance in any way."_  
  
_"Or he's not an imposter,"_ Paige spoke up.  
  
_"Of course he's an imposter! When have you ever known Roman to act like this?"_ Chelsea gestured to Roman as if to say 'case in point'.  
  
"That does not mean that he's an imposter," Virgil whispered in realization. Because he said it out loud, Logan looked to him in confusion.

"That does not mean that he is an imposter," Virgil repeated, this time though his phone.  
  
_"...you think this is actually Roman?"_ Paige stared at Roman in horror.  
  
Roman cackled. _"I know you mean that as an insult but I think I'll take it as a compliment!"_  
  
_"He's not acting anything like Roman!"_ Shane pointed out.  
  
_"Well, I wouldn't say he's not acting_ anything _like Roman,"_ Astrit noted fairly.  
  
_"Virgil is correct,"_ Logan interjected.  
  
_"...you think this creep is actually Roman?"_ Elliott eyed Roman warily.  
  
_"Our attempts to unmask him by undoing any enchantments on him has been met with little success. He is not using Polyjuice potion, nor is he using enchantments to disguise his appearance,"_ Logan reminded them.  
  
_"How do you explain this, then?"_ Dee questioned.  
  
_"A number of us have seen events similar to this transpire in the past. Virgil, Era, and Chelsea ought to know what I'm talking about,"_ Logan continued.  
  
_"Virgil, Era, and Chelsea? Why only them?"_ Shane wondered, looking at the three people named in utter confusion.  
  
Recognition dawned on Era's features. She whispered something into her girlfriend's ear, and Chelsea's eyes went wide.

_"He's had his memory altered like Virgil!"_ Chelsea blurted out.  
  
_"It is well within the realm of possibility,"_ Logan responded. _"Though I would not go so far as to state that with certainty."_  
  
Roman began to laugh. _"I should go into the kitchen and pop myself some popcorn! You guys are very entertaining!"_  
  
_"Stop laughing,"_ Dee hissed through clenched teeth.  
  
_"Or what? You'll kill me? You gonna kill me? I'd like to see you try!"_ Roman taunted.  
  
_"No one is going to kill anyone,"_ Logan advised.  
  
Roman smirked at that, tilting his head slightly. _"Oh? You're one to talk, aren't you Logan?"_  
  
Virgil's hands clenched into fists How dare he. _How dare he._ Virgil shoved his hand into his pocket, ready to retrieve his wand...  
  
_"Depulso!"_ Dee shouted. The spell hit Roman directly, and he went flying backward, hitting the opposite wall.  
  
Virgil was far from the only one in the room staring on in wide-eyed horror. The room was eerily silent as Roman slowly climbed back to his feet, staring at Dee with an unreadable expression.

Then, _unbelievably_, the corners of his mouth turned up as he began to shake with laughter. _"Oh, that was fun! Do it again, would you?"_  
  
There was pure unbridled fury in Dee's expression, and he looked all too willing to indulge Roman in this request.  
  
_"Stop!"_ Shane called out.  
  
_"Stop? Stop?!"_ Dee snapped.  
  
_"If this is actually Roman, we don't want to hurt him, do we?"_ Shane pointed out.  
  
Dee's wand dropped slightly as he apparently took what Shane was saying into consideration.  
  
_"Awww, you don't want to hurt me? But you seemed so willing to just a second ago! What does that say about you? Here you thought you friends loved you and adored you, but do they really? Or do they think you're just one second away from snapping and going back to your old roots?"_ Roman smirked.  
  
Dee raised his wand once more.  
  
_"No, don't!"_ Logan shouted.  
  
_"Do it, Dee. Kill me. Kill me now!"_ Roman shrieked, his twisted grin marring his features and warping them into something almost unrecognizable.  
  
_"Petrificus Totalus!"_ Elliott shouted, pointing their wand at Roman. A jet of white light shot out toward Roman...  
  
...who vanished just as the light was about to hit him.  
  
Virgil felt as if his heart skipped a beat as he looked around frantically. He wasn't the only one.   
  
Roman was nowhere to be found, but Virgil expected him to appear any minute now, and did not want to be caught off guard. He retrieved his wand from his pocket and glanced around warily.  
  
He expected to see Roman turn up behind someone and attack. He didn't expect what actually happened next.  
  
A bright flash of light engulfed the entire room, then everything faded to black.


	10. Chapter 10

Virgil opened his eyes, only to close them immediately because _damn_, his room wasn't usually this bright in the morning! Did Logan open the curtains or something?  
  
He remembered all too quickly that he _wasn't supposed to be in bed_, he was supposed to be at Patton and Roman's house. His eyes shot open at once and he peered around.  
  
...this was not his bedroom at home, _nor_ was it Patton and Roman's house. It was a familiar locale, however, though one that Virgil did not believe that he would ever see again.  
  
_"Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore,"_ Virgil heard Shane say.  
  
_"What?"_ That was Dee.  
  
_"Line from a Muggle movie Patton was telling us about,"_ Shane explained.  
  
_"Whatever,"_ Dee replied with a huff. Virgil glanced over in the direction of his brother's voice. He was surprised to see that Dee's disguise was _gone_ \- did his potion stop working?  
  
_"What are you looking at?"_ Dee arched an eyebrow.  
  
"Just wondering how long ago you took your potion," Virgil replied through his phone.

_"Why do_ you _care?"_ Dee retorted. Virgil couldn't tell if Dee was still angry from his encounter with Roman or if he was cranky just for the sake of being cranky, but it wasn't exactly _helpful_.  
  
"You look like yourself," Virgil told him.  
  
Dee clapped. _"Bravo, bravo. I look like myself, that's so helpf-"_ Dee stopped clapping abruptly, his eyebrows furrowing in contemplation before going wide. _"When you say that I look like myself, do you mean...myself myself?"_  
  
"Your face is half human and half snake," Virgil replied.  
  
Dee hissed and swore under his breath.  
  
_"So, anyone else wondering how we wound up in the Slytherin Common Room or is it just me?"_ Elliott's voice cut in.  
  
_"It's just you,"_ Dee responded sarcastically.  
  
_"You don't have to be an ass about it,"_ Elliott spat back. _"That's not gonna get us any closer to any answers."_  
  
Dee huffed, though kept silent. Elliott had a point, and Virgil suspected that Dee realized it but didn't want to admit it. Thus he opted to stubbornly stay mum instead.  
  
Virgil shook his head and glanced around to see if any of the others were awake.  
  
They weren't there.  
  
Virgil's stomach lurched. How could they not be there? It didn't make much sense, and the more Virgil thought about it, the less sense it made.  
  
Virgil was standing _near Logan_ when the light swept through the room. Elliott and Shane were _several feet away_. So why were they present when Logan was not?

"Guys, where are the others?" Virgil asked. For once, he was grateful that his phone would not betray any tone of voice that might suggest that this was bothering him as much as it actually was.  
  
Dee, Elliott, and Shane fell silent at that, each glancing around.  
  
_"...what the hell?"_ Shane blurted out. _"Why is it only us? Where are the others?"_  
  
_"They aren't Slytherins,"_ Elliott pointed out.  
  
_"So? We were all in the same room when that big flash of light happened, you'd think we'd all be in the same place!"_ Shane protested.  
  
_"You say that as if any of us know how we turned up here in the first place,"_ Dee noted.  
  
"Portkey?" Virgil suggested.  
  
_"The only way that works is if the floor was a portkey that was only activated once Roman left the room,"_ Elliott replied. _"And that still wouldn't explain why the others aren't here."_  
  
_"Each area of the floor was a different portkey and we just happened to be standing on the portkeys that took us to the Slytherin Common Room?"_ Shane guessed.  
  
_"And I'm sure it's a complete and utter coincidence that every single one of us is a former Slytherin,"_ Dee observed.  
  
That was a fair point.   
  
Shane frowned. _"Maybe it was designed that way on purpose, to specifically transport us to our former Common Room?"_  
  
"No way," Virgil responded. "There's no way that whoever did this could have known the exact spots we'd be standing in when this happened."  
  
_"Roman,"_ Dee said. Virgil turned to him in confusion.  
  
_"He's the one who did this to us, say his name,"_ Dee demanded.  
  
_"We still don't know for sure that it was Roman,"_ Shane reasoned.  
  
_"Sure looked a lot like Roman,"_ Elliott noted, bitterness seeping into their tone. _"And the fact that Chelsea's spell didn't do anything suggests that he wasn't using Polyjuice Potion."_  
  
Virgil sighed in frustration. He wasn't _trying_ to start a debate with his statement, and it frustrated him that his brother and friends seemed more focused on debating over whether or not Roman was actually Roman than _figuring out what was going on_.

"Guys, shut up," Virgil said, deliberately turning up the volume on his phone so that it would sound as though he were shouting. Thankfully, this had exactly the effect that he intended and Dee, Shane, and Elliott turned to look at him at once. "Let's focus on getting out of here and getting back to Patton and Roman's place first."  
  
_"Good idea. Let's go,"_ Shane replied, turning on the spot...and nearly falling over.  
  
Dee burst into laughter at the sight. Elliott glared at Dee. _"Can you do any better?"_  
  
_"Can you?"_ Dee responded, covering his mouth as a few more chuckles escaped. _"Where are we?"_  
  
_"The Slytherin Common...shit,"_ Elliott's eyes went wide as the realization hit them.  
  
_"Well that hardly sounds sanitary,"_ Dee responded with a smirk, and Shane struggled so hard to stifle a laugh that he started to cough.   
  
"This is the Slytherin Common Room. We can't Apparate at Hogwarts," Virgil came to the realization at the same point that Elliott did.  
  
_"Which means that we need to get off of the Hogwarts grounds so that we can Apparate back,"_ Elliott expanded upon Virgil's point.  
  
_"Well, what are we waiting around for? Let's go!"_ Shane announced once he'd regained his composure, and strode toward the door to the hall. He pulled it open...only to slam it shut again immediately. Virgil jumped at the suddenness of it all, much to his chagrin.  
  
_"What the hell was that for?"_ Dee eyed Shane. Virgil was pleased to see that he wasn't the only one caught off guard by Shane's action.  
  
_"See for yourself,"_ Shane told them in a grave tone. Virgil, Elliott, and Dee approached as Shane opened the door once more. They all expected to see the hall outside of their Common Room awaiting them.  
  
Instead, they were greeted by an endless black _void_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a story idea I've been contemplating for the past few installments now, but I haven't been able to work out how to incorporate it...until now. =P


	11. Chapter 11

Virgil thought he felt uneasy before, but that was _nothing_ compared to how he felt at what he was looking at now.  
  
Which, incidentally, _also_ happened to be nothing.  
  
Shane closed the door as soon as he was sure that the others saw what they needed to see. He turned back to them with an uncertain edpression, as if to say 'what do we do now?'.  
  
No one had an answer for him. Inevitably _someone_ had to break the silence, though, and Virgil wasn't surprised that it turned out to be Dee.  
  
_"Anyone else have any brilliant ideas?"_ he asked. Virgil, Shane, and Elliott all glanced to one another as if waiting to see if anyone else would speak up. _"Don't all speak at once now,"_ Dee added once the silence dragged on for longer than a minute.  
  
_"How are we supposed to come up with any ideas?"_ Elliott replied. _"We don't even know where we are."_  
  
_"Sure we do. We're in the Slytherin Common Room,"_ Shane frowned.  
  
"Are we?" Virgil questioned.  
  
_"I mean, what else would it be?"_ Shane wondered.  
  
_"They must have added the infinite void after we graduated. Not the stylistic choice that I would have made, but I suppose interior design has never been my strong suit,"_ Dee remarked sardonically.  
  
_"Do we have access to the dorms?"_ Elliott eyed the doors leading to said dorms in curiosity.  
  
_"...do we actually want to know the answer to that?"_ Shane eyed said doors warily.  
  
"No," Virgil admitted. After what just occurred, Virgil had _no idea_ what might be on the other side of the doors that supposedly led to the dorm.  
  
_"You say that as if we actually have a choice in the matter,"_ Dee remarked in a nonchalant tone.

_"Of course we do,"_ Elliott scoffed. _We either open the door or we don't."_  
  
_"And are we_ really _going to be able to live with ourselves for very long without seeing what is behind doors A and B?"_ Dee retorted.  
  
Virgil already knew the answer to that. He was terrified, but also curious. He had _no idea_ what was behind that door, and that frightened him. But the prospect of _never_ opening the door scared him just as much, because what if they _never_ opened the door and it happened to be the way back to Patton and Roman's all along?  
  
Dee was right. They needed to know what they were dealing with, and that ensured that the door would be opened by _someone_ at _some point_.  
  
They might as well hurry up and get it over with while they were _all_ present, in the event that something dangerous awaited them on the other side. There was strength in numbers, after all.  
  
And this time, they would be prepared. Virgil retrieved his wand at the same time his brother and friends did, and they all approached the door to the Slytherin boys' dorm.  
  
_"Who wants to do the honors?"_ Shane glanced around, clearly hoping that someone else would step up as he was the one to do it last time.  
  
Dee stepped forward, wand raised in one hand as the other gripped the handle to the door. He looked to the others to make certain that they were ready to attack if need be, then pulled open the door.  
  
It wasn't a void this time, nor were there any monsters awaiting them.  
  
The door _actually_ led to dorms. Go figure.  
  
_"I'll try the door to the girls' dorm,"_ Elliott announced.  
  
Elliott was the only one who _could_ check the girls' dorm. Virgil, Dee, and Shane were all subject to defensive spells that forbade them from approaching the dorms in question - Namely one that would turn the stairs into a _slide_ were they to try to ascend them.  
  
Elliott, who was nonbinary, was not subject to the same spell, and ascended the stairs with ease. _"Are you all ready?"_ they called down to Virgil, Dee, and Shane.  
  
The three who remained on the ground of the Slytherin Common Room nodded in reply, wands at the ready.  
  
Elliott pulled the door open. Virgil could not make out as many of the details as he could with the boys' dorm, but he could see enough to tell that Elliott opened the door to another set of dorms. Elliott closed the door behind them and descended down the stairs.

_"So we have access to two dorms. I guess that's better than nothing?"_ Shane shrugged.  
  
_"Yeah, those dorms are definitely going to help us get out of here,"_ Dee rolled his eyes.  
  
Dee was still being petty, but Virgil had to admit that his brother had a point. Virgil certainly preferred two sets of dorms to the alternative of two more endless voids, but he would have _much_ preferred a door leading back to Patton and Roman's home.  
  
Or at least an answer as to why the _other_ door lead to a void in the first place, or what would _happen_ if they ventured out into the void.  
  
Virgil supposed that he ought to be grateful that he was accompanied by two of his friends as well as his brother; Virgil suspected that he'd be _well_ within the throes of another panic attack were he not. The presence of friendly faces helped to keep him grounded, but even that could only go so far.

_"So let's refresh - We're basically trapped in the Slytherin Common Room. Apparition doesn't work. We've tried all the doors, and two lead to dorms. The third leads to an immeasurable void with properties that we can scarcely understand,"_ Elliott replied.  
  
"Do you have to describe the void in such a disconcerting way?" The words were as even as ever, as they were spoken through text to speech, but the fact that Virgil _winced_ as he pressed play belied his true feelings on the matter.  
  
Elliott merely shrugged in response.  
  
Shane snapped his fingers. Virgil was in such a state that he jolted harder than he should have at the sudden noise, much to his chagrin.  
  
Thankfully, the others were more focused on determining what brought on this action in Shane than they were at Virgil's jumpiness.  
  
(They probably hadn't noticed.)  
  
_"What?"_ Dee eyes Shane.  
  
_"There's one more avenue we haven't tried,"_ Shane grinned.


	12. Chapter 12

"This could go horribly wrong," Virgil observed.  
  
_"So could opening the doors to the dorms, but we saw how that turned out,"_ Elliott reasoned.  
  
_"Yeah, but what was the worst that could have happened there? The door opened to another void?"_ Dee snorted.  
  
"I can think of a few worse things than that," Virgil said with a shudder.  
  
_"Of course_ you _can,"_ Dee scoffed. Virgil bristled at that.  
  
_"Are you ever going to stop being an ass or are we going to have to deal with this the whole time?"_ Elliott snapped.  
  
_"Excuse me?"_ Dee huffed.  
  
_"Oh give me a break, I know you're not deaf. You're frustrated and taking it out on us,"_ Elliott replied.  
  
"He's not wrong though," Virgil conceded.  
  
_"Whether he's wrong or not is beside the point. He's still taking his frustration out on us. That's a dick move and he knows it,"_ Elliott folded their arms across their chest.  
  
Dee remained silent, his face impossible for Virgil to read. Even still, Virgil suspected that Dee was mulling over what Elliott had to say.  
  
_"Are we going to put this to the test or not?"_ Shane spoke up, clearly eager to switch the subject to something arguably more pleasant.

_"Sure. Who wants to be the guinea pig?"_ Elliott looked to the others. Virgil immediately held up his hands in a defensive stance and shook his head.  
  
Dee chuckled. _"Pick Virgil, he looks like he really wants to go."_  
  
Virgil hissed.  
  
_"I can do it,"_ Shane spoke up. He approached the fireplace, retrieving a small container from the mantle and taking a pinch of green powder into his hands. Shane tossed the powder into the fire, which glowed a brilliant green.  
  
_"Good luck,"_ Elliott told Shane. Shane nodded in reply, then took a deep breath and stepped into the flame.  
  
So far so good. Shane wasn't screaming in pain, which meant that the Floo Powder had it's intended effects on the flames thus far. Shane closed his eyes and spoke. "Patton and Roman's home!"  
  
Virgil, Dee, and Elliott watched with bated breath as the emerald flames leapt upward, seeming to swallow Shane whole.  
  
Elliott began to grin. The corners of Virgil's mouth twitched upward as well. The experiment showed all evidence of working-  
  
Until the flames dissipated and Shane was still standing there. Shane took in the appearance of the other three, looking utterly crestfallen. _"I thought for sure it was working."_  
  
_"Jump out,"_ Dee instructed.  
  
Shane turned to Dee in confusion. _"Get out of the flames you dumbass!"_ Dee shouted.  
  
Shane's eyes went wide as he leapt from the fireplace seemingly in the nick of time. He let out a yelp, however, and began beating at his pant leg frantically to put out the small flame there. He let out a sigh of relief when he was certain that he'd done this.  
  
Elliott turned to Dee with a bemused expression. _"I'll forgive you for that one."_  
  
_"Thanks, I'm honored,"_ Dee was back to form, sarcasm infusing every word.  
  
_"So...guess that means we can't use Floo to get out of here,"_ Shane sighed. _"Thought I was really on to something with that."_  
  
_"Wherever 'here' is,"_ Dee remarked.  
  
_"I thought we already established that this was the Slytherin Common Room?"_ Shane blinked.  
  
_"Ah yes, the void. It always was my favorite part of the dungeons,"_ Dee observed.  
  
There was a brief silence after that, punctuated by the sound of someone's stomach growling.  
  
_"Sorry,"_ Shane said sheepishly. _"I didn't eat before I went over to Patton and Roman's. Anyone got any snacks?"_  
  
Virgil's eyes went wide as he let out a groan.  
  
_"That didn't sound good,"_ Elliott frowned. _"You ok Virge?"_  
  
"What are we going to do about food?" Virgil questioned.  
  
_"If we don't have any food we can conjure some, that shouldn't be a problem,"_ Shane waved his hand. He lifted his wand and pointed it at one of the tables.  
  
Nothing happened.  
  
_"Nothing, my absolute favorite!"_ Dee drawled.  
  
_"That's strange,"_ Shane frowned, pointing his wand at the table and saying the incantation once more.  
  
Elliott hit their face with their hands. _"Duh."_  
  
_"Duh?"_ Shane turned to Elliott in confusion after his third failed attempt to conjure food.

_"You can keep trying to conjure food but it's never going to work,"_ Elliott admitted.  
  
_"...why not? Am I doing something wrong?"_ Shane furrowed his brow in confusion.  
  
Elliott shook their head. _"Not at all. You just can't conjure food where there is no food."_  
  
_"Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration,"_ Dee realized.  
  
_"...well crap. What are we supposed to do now?"_ Shane plopped back onto one of the couches and let out a sigh.  
  
_"We might be able to find something? Gamp's Law doesn't say that we can't multiply food that we already have, so if we find any food we can make more food from that,"_ Elliott suggested.  
  
"What if we can't find food?" Virgil asked.  
  
Elliott seemed to struggle with a response to that, and what they settled on wasn't exactly reassuring. _"...well, let's hope it doesn't come to that."_  
  
_"Let's hope we get out of here first,"_ Shane chimed in.

_"Guys, I don't think running out of food will be a problem,"_ Shane grinned. _"I found some Bertie Botts beans in my pocket!"_ Shane grinned.  
  
_"Wrapped, I would hope?"_ Dee eyed Shane warily.  
  
_"Of course! What, did you think I just had a couple of random beans hanging out in my pocket?"_ Shane snickered. He pulled the bag from his pocket and tossed it on the table.  
  
_"...let's hope we can find other items to supplement that if we're in here for the long haul?"_ Dee remarked.  
  
There was a loud bang that seemed to echo through the room, then silence.  
  
_"What the hell was that?!"_ Elliott blurted out.  
  
Virgil didn't know, but he had a feeling that they would find out sooner or later. Something told him that finding food would be among the _least_ of their worries, especially since the bang seemed to have originated from the door on the other side of the room...


	13. Chapter 13

They did manage to find more food, at least. It wasn't anything miraculous, but Elliott found graham crackers in their bag, as well as a couple of pieces of candy. It wouldn't be enough to sustain them long term, but they weren't in this for the long haul...hopefully.  
  
What Virgil and the others remained more concerned about were the noises. While no more loud bangs interrupted them in the midst of conversations, Virgil would swear that he heard noises in the _walls_.  
  
_"Are you sure? I haven't..."_ Shane began to ask, but Virgil held his finger over his mouth in a shushing motion and leaned his ear up against the wall. Shane followed suit. At first he appeared to be listening intently, but then he froze as the color began to drain from his face. After a moment or so he pulled away, eying the wall warily. _"Is something living in there?"_  
  
That wasn't the only bizarre happenstance. Elliott was near the fire when they sudden jumped up, eyes narrowed and wand pointed at the flames.  
  
_"What the-"_ Dee neatly fell backward out of his chair in surprise.   
  
_"I saw something in the flames,"_ Elliott kept their eyes on the flames, as did Dee and Virgil, but nothing else appeared in them.  
  
Though there were dorm rooms, they all opted to sleep in the Common Room that night.  
  
Virgil, Logan, and Dee never returned from Patton and Roman's. Surely Renilda and Professor Picani contacted someone by this point. That meant that someone was searching for them, at least...but would they find Virgil and Dee here? Would they even know where to look? And where was Logan?  
  
Unsurprisingly, Virgil was the first to wake up of the four. He had a fitful slumber, and awoke with his hear racing. He attempted to untangle himself from the blankets that they'd retrieved from the dorms to use in the Common Room. He glanced over at Dee, Elliott, and Shane who were sleeping as sound as could be, and could not resist a smile. At least _they_were getting some rest. Maybe he could get a head start on finding a way out before the others woke up. It would be so _nice_ to surprise them with some sort of breakthrough! Virgil reached over to retrieve his phone, pressing a button on the side to turn it on.  
  
Nothing happened. Virgil tried again. He thought back to the last time he used the phone, realizing that the battery was low from that amount that he'd used it the previous day.  
  
And if it was low _then_, it was probably _dead_ now. Virgil had no way of charging his phone here, which meant that he was effectively muted once more.  
  
Joy.  
  
Virgil let out a sigh of frustration, tossing his phone down. He frowned when he spotted movement out of the corner of his eye. Did he accidentally wake one of the the others up?  
  
If only.  
  
Virgil barely had time to react before something snaked its way around his waist. Virgil immediately attempted to pull whatever it was away, but he found little success in his endeavor. He glanced down. To his horror, a thick green tentacle was wrapped around him, and with a sudden yanking motion, it began to drag him toward the fireplace. Toward the _fire_.  
  
And he soon realized that he was not the only one in this predicament.  
  
Shane had a tentacle wrapped around his leg, and Elliott had one around their arm. A fourth and final tentacle was inching its way toward Dee. Virgil tried to retrieve his wand from his pocket, but just as he had the wand within his grasp, it fell from his hand as the tentacle suddenly tightened its grip that much more.  
  
If he couldn't fight off the tentacles, maybe one of the others could? Virgil let out a yelp. His mind had been compared to an overactive alarm in the past. They wanted an alarm? They were going to _get_ an alarm. If this wasn't an emergency, he wasn't sure what would constitute one.  
  
If they weren't awake before, they would _certainly_ be awake now.  
  
\--------------------------------  
  
Roman glanced up in surprise when he heard a knock at the door. Delilah, much to his amusement, looked just as confused as he did. _Good_. Let her be confused. Let her know that she couldn't control _everything_. Hopefully it all backfired in her face.  
  
His eyes widened as a realization struck him. His friends _had_ to have figured out Remus' ruse by now! Perhaps that was them now? Roman smirked triumphantly, ready to taunt Delilah about the fact that her evil scheme was about to come to an end...  
  
...only for _Remus_ to walk in through the door instead. At least Delilah looked just as surprised as he did?  
  
_"What the hell are you doing back here? You're supposed to keep an eye on them!"_ Delilah hissed.  
  
_"Ha, that's so cute, you actually think you're the boss of me!"_ Remus taunted. Roman honestly wasn't sure _who_ to root for - as much as he enjoyed seeing Dellah's exasperation after all she'd put Roman through, _Remus_ was...something else. _"Besides, there's not much that I need to keep an eye on."_  
  
Roman didn't like the sound of that. _"What do you mean?"_  
  
Remus beamed as soon as he set eyes on his brother. _"Oh, look at you! You're behaving so well!"_  
  
_"What do you mean 'there's not much that you need to keep an eye on'?"_ Roman repeated.  
  
_"Sheesh, is that any way to greet your twin brother?"_ Remus pouted.  
  
_"Tell. Me. Now,"_ Roman hissed in anger. He didn't want to play these twisted games, especially not if his _friends_ were hurt.  
  
Remus giggled. _"Oh, Patton's vanished into thin air, haven't seen heads or tails of him for at least a couple of days now! As for your other friends...well, they figured out that something smelled rotten a lot sooner than I intended for them to and of course I couldn't just let that go!"_  
  
_"Maybe it wouldn't smell rotten if you would take a bath every once in a while,"_ Roman heard Delilah mutter. He opted not to acknowledge her utterance; he had more pressing matters to tend to.  
  
_"What do you mean you couldn't just let them go? What did you do to them?!"_ Roman demanded.  
  
_"Oh, I didn't do anything to them...yet,"_ Remus smiled. _"In fact, one might argue that I'm not doing anything to them at all! I did, however, happen to send them to a place that they might not exit alive!"_ he beamed.   
  
Roman's blood ran cold.


	14. Chapter 14

The others were awake now - Not that that did much to help the situation.  
  
They were _all_ trapped within the grasp of this...an involuntary shudder went through Virgil as he realized that he had _no_ idea what sort of creature these tentacles might belong to.  
  
_"Is it the giant squid from the lake outside Hogwarts?"_ Shane wondered, desperately trying to reach for his wand so that he might free his leg. Just as his fingers brushed against his wand, however, he was pulled away with strong yank. _"No, wait! Dammit, I almost had it!"_  
  
_"Can't be the squid, since when can squids_ travel through fire_?"_ Elliott protested.  
  
_"...it's a magic squid?"_ Shane countered weakly.  
  
_"Diffindo!"_ Dee shouted, trying to fight off the tentacle that threatened to come for him. He let out a whoop of triumph as he sliced the tentacle in two...only for it to reform where he sliced it off, much to his horror. Dee let out a string of expletives that would have Patton utterly beside himself in indignation as the tentacle surged forward and wrapped around both of his wrists, knocking his wand from his grasp and sending it falling to the ground.  
  
That meant that the only one with a wand still in their grasp was Elliott, and they were doing their best to fight off the tentacle around their other arm. They seemed to have gotten the hint from Dee that the severing charm would work, at least temporarily. They cast the spell on the tentacle around their other arm, freeing it. Then they narrowed their eyes and pointed their wand at the stub that remained. _"Bombarda!"_ they shouted. The tentacle _exploded_. They waited several seconds to see if the tentacle would come back from that, but it looked as though Elliott actually succeeded in _vanquishing_ the tentacle.  
  
One down, three to go.  
  
Elliott narrowed their eyes. They turned to Shane, the nearest person to them, wand still at the ready.  
  
Virgil swore. He should have _known_ the celebration was premature. He could not think of any creature that had _four_ tentacles.  
  
Another tentacle burst forth from the fire, tearing toward Elliott. "Elliott, look out behind you!" Virgil screamed.  
  
Elliott turned at once. _"Bombarda!"_ they shouted, deciding to forgo the severing spell and go straight for the spell that would _destroy_ the thing.  
  
They let out a sigh of relief, turning to Virgil. _"Merlin, that was a close one. Thanks for the war..."_ Elliott paused, their eyes going wide.  
  
"What? What is it?" Virgil's heart felt as if it might leap from his chest. Why wasn't Elliott _doing_ anything? Couldn't they tell that they needed to act _now_?  
  
_"I understood you,"_ Elliott confessed. _"I understood what you said!"_  
  
...what the _frick_?!

\------------------  
  
_"A place they might not exit alive? Where did you send them?"_ Roman asked of his brother.  
  
_"That's for me to know and you to find out! Maybe. Haven't decided if I actually wanna tell you or not. Probably not, since it's a lot more fun watching you squirm."_ Remus grinned.  
  
Just as unhelpful as Roman expected.  
  
His friends and his fiance were in danger and he didn't even know where they were!  
  
But wait, Remus mentioned Patton separately from everyone else. Patton _vanished_?!  
  
_"Where is Patton?"_ Roman hissed.  
  
_"Beats me! He's the one who just decided to up and leave! Don't know what you see in him, honestly, if he's just going to up and leave when the going gets tough!"_ Remus shrugged.  
  
Roman didn't buy that for a second. Either Remus _knew_ that Roman would see through his lies and was thereby taunting him, or he _really_ didn't know Patton. Roman could not help but hope it was the latter, but he suspected it was the former.  
  
_"What did you do to my fiance?"_ Roman repeated.  
  
_"Well, I knew I needed to get to know him, of course. My future brother in law and you didn't even introduce us! For shame, Roman. For shame!"_ Remus admonished.  
  
_"I didn't even know you existed until I was kidnapped!"_ Roman snapped.  
  
_"...fair point,"_ Remus shrugged. _"Anyway, that boy toy of yours? His mind's an open book! He made it so easy!"_  
  
_"You stay out of Patton's mind, you fiend!"_ Roman snarled.  
  
_"Bit late for that, isn't it?"_ Remus retorted. _"He ran away right after...oh, right, I didn't tell you yet, did I? He broke off the engagement! Isn't that scandalous?!"_  
  
Roman felt as if he's been socked in the gut.

_"He would never do that,"_ Roman whispered.  
  
_"Uh, he just did so obviously he would!"_ Remus said with a snort.  
  
It was hard for Roman to tell whether Remus was lying to rile him up or telling him the truth.  
  
_"I have no reason to lie to you, brother dearest,"_ Remus noted.  
  
Roman narrowed his eyes. _"Don't do that."_  
  
_"Sheesh, didn't you learn the first time? Leave your mind open for me and I'm gonna use it!"_ Remus rolled his eyes.  
  
_"I cannot conceive any legitimate reason why Patton would call off the wedding,"_ Roman argued.  
  
_"Liar,"_ Remus smirked.  
  
Roman stilled. _"How are you still..."_ Roman was employing the use of Occlumency that time!  
  
Remus snickered. _"I didn't. It doesn't take a mind reader to tell that you're lying. You can think of plenty of reasons he'd call off the engagement! He's found someone else? He's realized he can do better than you?"_  
  
The fact that Roman paled at those words, turning _palest_ at the last bit, told Remus that he'd inferred correctly

Roman didn't think he was good enough for Patton. Patton didn't think he was good enough for Roman.  
  
How utterly _adorable_. This was even better than Remus thought!  
  
And here Delilah told him that he would _only_ be ruining a wedding. He'd really outdone himself this time!


	15. Chapter 15

Virgil stood absolutely frozen, his eyes wide.  
  
Dee didn't get it. Virgil was going to get himself _killed_ because Elliott admitted that they could understand his speech? Dee could understand it too, and he certainly found that bizarre, but none of that _mattered_ much when they were all going to die if they didn't take action soon! Virgil wasn't even struggling anymore! Dee might be paying attention to Virgil, but he at least continued to try to wriggle his way out of the grasp of..._whatever_ sort of monster had them. And at least Virgil had his hands free; Dee's were stuck at his sides.  
  
Much to Dee's surprise, a determined expression came across his brother's features. Dare Dee allow himself to hope that his brother might have figured out something? It wasn't like he could do much _else_ at this point, much to his chagrin.  
  
Virgil proceeded to narrow his eyes at the tentacle that held him, as if _glaring_ at it would make a difference.  
  
_"What are you doing you idiot?!"_ he hissed. He _knew_ Virgil was smarter than that!  
  
Virgil briefly looked contemplative, but then the corners of his mouth twitched upward into a grin. Much to Dee's horror, his brother closed his eyes.  
  
_Idiot idiot idiot! I trusted you!_ Dee chastised Virgil mentally, feeling more and more hopeless as the tentacle dragged him closer to the flames.  
  
Then he saw something shiny in his peripheral vision. Dee's eyes immediately sought it out at once.  
  
_"How the_ hell _did you-"_ Dee began, but was cut off by a sudden swinging motion from the _sword that materialized in Virgil's hand_. Virgil swung the sword toward the tentacle and sliced it clear in two, freeing himself from its grasp. Cut off from the rest of the creature, the bit of tentacle still around Virgil's waist loosened and fell harmlessly to the floor.  
  
Virgil fell to his knees, losing his balance from the sudden motion. His eyes were just as wide as before, only this time he stared down at the sword in his own hands. Slowly, one corner of his mouth twitched upward in a smirk, though he still looked incredulous. "I can't believe that actually worked!" he blurted out.

...how...?  
  
Before Dee could ask, he was jerked closer still to the fire, and he was forcibly reminded of just how pressing the situation actually was.  
  
_"This is fine,"_ Dee announced in a casual tone, offset by the flames from the fire rising up behind him.  
  
Virgil glanced up, his eyes going wide. "Shit, Dee!"  
  
_"Oh no, like I said it's totally fine! You can just stand there while we get pulled into the fire, it's alright!"_ Dee assured him, sarcasm laced into every word.  
  
Virgil lifted the sword in his hands and gave it a hefty swing, severing the tentacle that held Dee. As with Virgil, the remainder of the tentacle that bound Dee fell harmlessly to the floor once it was disconnected from the creature attacking them.  
  
Virgil was about to do the same for Shane, but Elliott beat him to the punch with another severing and exploding charm combo.  
  
But the job wasn't done yet.  
  
_"Are there any more?"_ Shane eyed the fireplace warily.  
  
They saw no evidence _yet_, but Virgil knew better than to make assumptions. Sure enough, two more tentacles darted out of the flames. Elliott and Shane immediately set into action, simultaneously trying to neutralize said tentacles whilst also dodging them. Virgil and Dee exchanged looks, both letting out exasperated sighs as they entered the battle once more.  
  
The group did a much easier job beating the tentacles the second time around, but...how long would this last?  
  
_"The thing can regenerate its tentacles, so even if we're damaging the ones coming after us, it can just grow new ones. We can keep it at bay but we can't stop it this way,"_ Elliott realized.  
  
"We can block the fireplace," Virgil suggested.  
  
_"With what?"_ Dee arched a brow.  
  
"Those bricks," Virgil pointed beside the fireplace to a pile of bricks that _definitely_ were not there before.  
  
_"Where the hell did..."_ Elliott gasped, but Dee pushed past them and immediately set to work. Elliott, Shane, and Virgil joined in, and in moments the fireplace was blocked.  
  
Virgil let out a sigh of relief, but these feelings were short-lived as he heard a _bang_ on the other side of the bricks.  
  
_"Oh lovely, it's going to break through the bricks now,"_ Shane said through barely concealed hysterical laughter.  
  
_"Nope,"_ Elliott stepped forward, and with a couple of quick waves of their wand, cast both guards and strengthening spells on the barrier that the group created. _"There, now there's a physical and magical barrier. If it gets through one, it still has the other to contend with."_  
  
...and Virgil still had a sword. How in the name of Merlin did Virgil get his hands on a sword?!

_"Well that was fun,"_ Dee said at last, looking as though he would rather be _anywhere_ but there.  
  
_"Totally. Sign me up for that ride again,"_ Elliott replied in equal amounts of sarcasm.  
  
_"Okay, but is anyone gonna talk about how Virgil got a sword?!"_ Shane interjected.  
  
_"No, I think we're all wondering that,"_ Elliott admitted.  
  
_"Well?"_ Dee turned to his brother, arching an eyebrow.  
  
Virgil reached for his phone out of habit, but paused when he recalled that he _didn't need it_. "I got a sword because I wanted a sword," Virgil informed them.

_"And I presume those bricks just_ magically _appeared because you wanted bricks?"_ Dee scoffed.  
  
"Well...yeah?" Virgil responded. "That's kinda how it works."  
  
Dee, Shane, and Elliott exchanged glances. Judging by the expressions on Shane and Elliott's faces, they were thinking the same thing that Dee was - Virgil _clearly_ knew something that they did not.  
  
_"Kinda how what works?"_ Elliott furrowed their brow in confusion.  
  
"This. Look," Virgil pointed to the table where they stored their meager supply of food...only it wasn't so meager anymore. In fact, there were chips, dip, and cookies sitting on the table now.  
  
Dee gaped at a grinning Virgil. _"How did you...how are you..."_  
  
_"That didn't work when I tried it!"_ Shane protested.  
  
"Because you didn't know how this place worked. You were trying to summon food," Virgil replied.  
  
_"And? I'm not following you,"_ Shane frowned.  
  
"You were trying to summon actual food here, and that wasn't going to work," Virgil noted.  
  
_"What? Why?"_ Shane wondered.  
  
The corners of Virgil's mouth turned upward into a wry smile. "Because this isn't real."


	16. Chapter 16

Virgil knew that his words would cause a stir, and he was not disappointed.  
  
_"Not real? What do you mean it's not real?"_ Dee demanded an explanation. Virgil could hardly blame him for that.  
  
"It's not real," Virgil repeated, not sure how else to explain it - especially when he was put on the spot.  
  
Shane looked on in confusion. _"That doesn't answer anything, dude..."_  
  
Elliott, on the other hand, looked thoughtful. Virgil let out a sigh of relief. Did someone else get it? _"You thought those things into reality, didn't you? The sword and the bricks?"_  
  
"Sorta," Virgil admitted.  
  
_"But how? How does that even work?!"_ Dee glanced back and forth between Virgil and Elliott. He was so caught off guard that he even dropped his prior attitude about Virgil's vagueness.  
  
_"What even gave you the idea to try that?"_ Shane wondered.  
  
"You guys understood me," Virgil revealed. "I figured it out then. If this were reality, you wouldn't understand a word I was saying," he smiled wryly. It wasn't his favorite thing to admit, but it was _true_. If his curse was capable of spontaneously _undoing_ itself like that, he figured it would have happened _long_ before now. "So I figured if I could fix my speech, what else could I do?"  
  
_"Create swords and bricks apparently,"_ Shane observed with a snort.  
  
_"I don't get it though. I mean, I get your argument and I think it's mostly sound, but..."_ Elliott trailed off.  
  
_"But what?"_ Shane urged them to continue.  
  
_"But the tentacles. I know you say this isn't real, and I_ get it_, but those tentacles felt awfully real,"_ Elliott continued.  
  
_"I could even feel the heat from the fire as the monster pulled me closer,"_ Shane confessed with a shudder. _"I find it hard to believe that we went through all of that and our lives weren't even in danger?"_  
  
"Our lives were in danger, though," Virgil admitted with a shaky sigh.  
  
_"Didnt't you_ just say _that none of this was real?"_ Dee protested.  
  
"I said this isn't reality," Virgil amended.  
  
_"What's the diff?"_ Shane frowned.  
  
"This isn't really the Slytherin Common Room. Where we are now, it isn't reality," Virgil began to explain.  
  
Elliott gasped. _"But just because this isn't reality as we know it doesn't mean that we aren't still experiencing it, because we're still a part of it. It's like a dream - you're still experiencing the dream and it can have a real impact on you even thought it's all happening in your head while you're asleep."_  
  
_"So we_ could _have died?"_ Shane's eyes went wide in horror.  
  
_"I'm not 100% sure,"_ Elliott admitted.  
  
_"I would think it would depend?"_ Dee spoke up.

_"Depend on what?"_ Shane asked.  
  
Virgil chewed on his bottom lip. He had ideas, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to share them. Dee nudged him in the side with his elbow and jerked his head slightly as if to say 'go ahead'. He inhaled deeply in an attempt to steel himself. "On whether or not we're actually here."  
  
_"I didn't think that was up for debate?"_ Shane glanced around warily.  
  
_"To be or not to be. That is the question,"_ Dee recited. _"Though it doesn't seem as though we have much choice in the matter when there's really only two feasible options?"_  
  
_"Only two?"_ Elliott blinked in surprise.  
  
_"Are only our minds trapped in this replica of the Slytherin Common Room, or have we been transported here physically as well?"_ Dee wondered. _"Just because it's not reality as we know it doesn't mean that we don't experience it as reality as long as we stay here..."_  
  
_"...oh damn,"_ Elliott whistled. _"That does put us in a difficult situation."_  
  
Damn right it did! If it was only their minds trapped, there might be no lasting harm to them no matter _what_ happened. If they were trapped physically? They could be _killed_.  
  
_"Do we have any way to test which one it is?"_ Shane asked.

_"Are we even trapped? I mean, now that we know this isn't reality, couldn't we just...y'know, hightail it out of here?" _ Elliott wondered.

"I don't think it's gonna be that easy," Virgil admitted. 

_"Says the guy who literally summoned a sword on a whim,"_ Shane grinned. _"You proved you can do just about anything in here as long as you set your mind to it! So...we just set our minds to getting out of here!"_

_"You really think it's going to be that simple?"_ Dee eyed Shane skeptically.

"It's not," Virgil replied. "We _can't_ just do anything we want here."

_"But you just..."_ Shane started to protest, but then his words trailed off. He let out a sigh of frustration. 

"It looks like we can alter and summon things, but we can't control everything," Virgil admitted.

_"What do you mean?"_ Shane frowned, eyeing Virgil curiously.

Dee's eyes went wide with recognition. _"The tentacle. When you were staring at it, you were trying to get it to disappear, weren't you?"_

Virgil nodded.

Elliott paled. _"There's a force bigger than us in charge of this. We're not getting out that easy."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This came up a little short, but I couldn't think of anything else to add and it's only a hundred or so words short so...eh, I'll leave it where it is


	17. Chapter 17

Virgil, Dee, Elliott, and Shane might have _one_ answer, but with that one answer came many more questions.  
  
_"I don't get it. How did we get here. Why are we here?"_ Shane blurted out at one point.  
  
_"No need to get all existential on us now,"_ Dee joked.  
  
Joked because they _all_ had the same questions as Shane on their minds, they just neglected to give voice to them.  
  
They weren't any closer to finding any answers to said questions either. Virgil suspected that this was not a dream, at least not in the traditional sense. Surely they would have woken up by this point if it was?  
  
That still did not mean that they were necessarily _physically_ present within their current location. They might be under some sort of spell, or they might be trapped in an elaborate illusion. But where were Logan, Chelsea, Era, Astrit, and Paige, if this was just an illusion and they were in the kitchen of Roman and Patton's home all along?  
  
And was Roman _actually_ responsible for this?  
  
_"Who else would it be?"_ Dee scoffed when Virgil posed the question to him.  
  
"I don't know, something still seems weird about the whole thing," Virgil admitted.  
  
_"Weird how?"_ Dee arched an eyebrow.  
  
"None of this seems like something Roman would do."  
  
Dee let out a snort. _"And I'm sure you acted perfectly in character while you were under our dear father's spell?"_  
  
Virgil winced at the mention of Linus, but took solace at the bitterness that seeped into Dee's tone as he spoke of their father. That said, he could not focus on that particular matter for long; Dee awaited his answer, after all.  
  
"It's hard to explain. My memories were shifted so of course things were different. I..." he faltered, recalling how he cast the Cruciatus Curse on Patton, Patton writhing in pain, and the feeling of pride that surged through him at the sight at the time. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to steady himself before he continued. "I did things I would never do otherwise," he admitted in a quiet tone.  
  
_"See?"_ Dee responded, as if that proved his pointed.  
  
"I was still me, though," Virgil told his brother.  
  
_"...do continue,"_ Dee said, motioning for him to do precisely that.

That would be easier said than done, as Virgil still struggled to cope with the experiences in question (and probably would for the rest of his life) but he would do his best.  
  
"My memories were totally out of whack, but...you could still tell it was me? I still didn't like crowds much, I still overanalyzed things...I was still me, just a different version of me." Virgil wasn't sure if any of this was actually helping his brother to understand.  
  
Dee looked contemplative, so Virgil knew that he'd at least given Dee enough information that he considered it worthy of mulling over. _"What does any of this have to do with Roman?" _he said at last, looking to Virgil expectantly._  
  
_Should've expected that one,_ _Virgil thought to himself as he considered his response_. _"I don't think Roman is acting like Roman."_  
  
_Dee let out a snort. __"We already-"_  
  
_Virgil let out a sigh of frustration. How could he explain this when he barely understood it himself? Honestly, this all came down to a feeling. A feeling that something wasn't right, but Virgil had those feelings all the time, so what made this time any different than any other time? He was probably overthinking things again. "Nevermind. Not like it matters. Roman's not here and we don't know when we'll see him again, if ever."_  
  
_"Boy Virgil, you sure know what to say to make people feel better when the going gets rough. Such encouraging words!"_ _Dee responded sardonically._  
  
_"Yeah, well, that's never been my strong suit," Virgil mumbled. "You gotta admit that we haven't found a way out of here yet."_  
  
_"Because we've searched every last inch of this place? I must not have been paying attention. Rude; you, Elliott and Shane should really tell me about these things,"__ Dee noted sarcastically.

"We've looked through both dorms and the Common Room. We've tried Apparating and Floo Powder. We've tried willing ourselves to wake up in the event that this is all a dream, and none of it has worked," Virgil felt more and more panic well up inside of him with every item that he listed, though he couldn't bring himself to stop. It was as if he _needed_ to convey to Dee just how pressing this situation actually was, just how _trapped_ they were.  
  
For a brief period of time, the knowledge that they were not in reality offered him comfort. It gave him a small sense of control over the situation. It allowed him to _talk_, something that he hadn't been able to do for over a year. But...in a strange twist, now he had to get _used_ to talking again, because he'd grown so used to the other methods of communication at his disposal that reverting to them was almost automatic. And now, the fact that they weren't in their reality terrified him, because if they weren't in reality, just about _anything_ could happen, and his mind was _really_ good at coming up with more and more horrifying scenarios as to what that might mean.

It was at that point that Dee cleared his throat to bring Virgil's attention back to him. Virgil looked to him curiously. _"Have we tried everything, though?"_ Dee inquired, in a tone that suggested that Virgil was missing something obvious.  
  
Virgil stared at Dee, waiting for him to elaborate. Hadn't Virgil _just listed_ everything they tried already? What was he missing? What else did Dee possibly expect them to-  
  
Oh. Oh no. _Hell_ no. Dee wasn't suggesting...  
  
_"We haven't tried going out the front door yet, have we?"_Dee smirked.__  
  
__...Dee _was_ suggesting what Virgil thought he was. Virgil glanced to the door that would ordinarily lead to the hall outside of the Slytherin Common Room.


	18. Chapter 18

_"You-you think we should try_ what _now?"_ Shane spluttered.  
  
_"I don't know, it might be our one shot out of here,"_ Elliott reasoned.  
  
_"Or it could be a one way ticket to our doom!"_ Shane argued back.  
  
Virgil had to admit that it felt _nice_ knowing that he wasn't alone. Unfortunately, that didn't bring them any closer to actually making a decision.  
  
Dee and Elliott were in support of venturing out into The Endless Void, as they'd taken to calling it. Virgil and Shane? Not so much.  
  
As Dee and Elliott saw it, they'd exhausted all of the other options that they could think of, the...the _Void_ had to be the answer.  
  
But what if it wasn't? What if it was a trap? What if stepping into the void ensured that they would never go home? What if it _killed_ them?  
  
Sure, they might never go home if they stayed where they were as well, but...it was _safer_. And in this instance? Safer might mean the difference between life and death.  
  
_"Because doing absolutely nothing is totally going to get us out of here,"_ Virgil heard Dee scoff. He hadn't paid attention to the most recent exchanges, and he immediately listened in to see how the discussion was going.  
  
_"Well if we're going to go through with it, can we at least do a test run first?"_ Shane suggested.  
  
...wait, Shane was with _them_ now?  
  
"We're not going anywhere," Virgil announced, wishing that he sounded more confident than he felt.  
  
_"Does 3 to 1 mean nothing to you, Virgil?"_ Dee smirked.  
  
_"It's more like 2 1/2 to 1 1/2, really,"_ Shane admitted.  
  
Dee waved his hand dismissively. _"Either way."_  
  
"But it's dangerous!" Virgil protested.  
  
_"Is it?"_ Dee asked. _"Do you have proof of this?"_  
  
"Well, no-" Virgil conceded.  
  
_"See? There you go!"_ Dee stated triumphantly.  
  
"You don't have any proof that it's _not_ dangerous either!" Virgil reminded Dee.  
  
_"Either way, we won't know unless we try, will we?"_ Elliott reasoned.  
  
Shane looked hesitant. _Good_, maybe he was rethinking this whole thing... _"I think we should try it."_  
  
"What?!" Virgil gaped. "We have no...this could _kill_ us! Don't you understand that?!" Virgil could feel his heart pounding in his ears, but he knew that he could not allow that to distract him. He had to keep his friends from doing something that they might deeply regret.  
  
If they were still around to regret it.  
  
_"You want us to stay here forever?"_ Dee asked.  
  
"No, I just think it's stupid to go running off into a literal void that we know nothing about!" Virgil replied.  
  
_"Oh, it's stupid? You think my idea is stupid?"_ Dee scoffed.  
  
"It's dangerous!" Virgil protested.  
  
_"And staying here isn't?"_ Dee challenged.  
  
Virgil froze at that.  
  
Dee continued on. _"I suppose you're pleased as punch at the knowledge that we might never get out of here. I suppose you think it's worth it, to risk never seeing our family and friends ever again just because you want to play it safe. I suppose you've made peace with the fact that you'll never see Logan again."_  
  
Virgil's stomach lurched. "Stop it."  
  
_"Yes, I can see it now. You're content to stay here because it's 'safer'. You're content to stay here and live this pale imitation of reality because there are no risks involved. The risks aren't worth it, are they? No, best to stay here forev-"_  
  
"I said stop it!" Virgil snapped.  
  
Dee arched an eyebrow. _"Did I hit a nerve?"_  
  
"You know damn well that you did, you manipulative bastard," Virgil shot back.  
  
Dee feigned confusion before plastering a mock offended expression on his face. _"Well I never!"_  
  
"Thank you," Virgil told him.  
  
This time, the confusion on Dee's face was unmistakably real. _"What?"_  
  
"You got me. I still think this is dangerous, but...I think it's worth it to try," Virgil admitted.

_"Huh,"_ Dee responded, but it wasn't a question so much as a statement.  
  
"I mean I still think a million and one things could go wrong, but staying here...staying here is pretty much like giving up, and...and I don't want to give up," Virgil admitted. It might be _safer_, but if they stayed, they might never see their loved ones again. And the idea of never seeing Renilda again, or little Renata, or _Logan_...  
  
Sometimes it was worth taking risks.  
  
There was also Patton to consider. Now that they knew that something was wrong with Roman (if Roman was even Roman), Virgil suspected that there was a _lot_ more to Patton's disappearance than what they were first led to believe.

He knew Dee didn't convince him for entirely altruistic reasons. He knew that Dee wanted to win an argument and knew what he needed to say to win it. It was why Virgil thought that Dee's choice to study law fit him so well.  
  
That being said...he was _right_. Virgil needed an impetus to overcome his doubts and fears, something to _work_ toward. It didn't get rid of the fear; Virgil was still utterly _petrified_ that something would go wrong. But he had reason to push through the fear.  
  
There was no more debate. They were _actually_ doing this. Virgil stuffed his hands into his pockets. If no one saw his hands shaking, were they actually shaking? (The answer of course was 'yes', but at least no one would bug him or tease him about it if they didn't see.)  
  
_"So...I guess we're going through with this then?"_ Shane asked, reaching forward to open the door.  
  
_"What the fresh hell are you doing?"_ Dee stared at Shane, incredulous.  
  
_"Opening the door...?"_ Shane replied, a puzzled expression on his face.  
  
_"Brilliant idea! That won't get us killed at all!"_ Dee snapped.  
  
_"But you're the one who suggested we do this in the first place! Now that we're about to do it, you decide you don't want to?"_ Shane stared.

Virgil suspected that he knew where Dee was going with this, because _he_ wouldn't suggest just opening the door into the Void and striding out right away, but was that where Dee was going?  
  
_"Yes, fantastic idea! Let's go into this without any planning at all! That won't come back to bite us in the ass!"_ Dee hissed.  
  
Ah, there it was.


	19. Chapter 19

They decided to do a few test runs first. They threw a few objects into the Void first, to see if they would vanish and/or get destroyed.  
  
The only thing that happened was that the void grew a little less empty.  
  
_"Oh good, we're not going to vanish into non-being the moment we step forth from this door. That's a good sign,"_ Elliott acknowledged with a snort.  
  
_"So how are we going to do this?"_ Shane frowned. _"We don't know how big this thing is..."_  
  
_"I mean, it's an Endless Void...you do the math,"_ Dee snickered.  
  
_"We don't actually know it's endless though, we just named it that because we didn't see any end in sight,"_ Elliott reasoned.  
  
"So it may be only functionally endless, as opposed to actually endless. Comforting," Virgil remarked sardonically.  
  
_"What if we step out into the void and can't breathe?"_ Shane wondered. _Why the hell would he say something like that?!_  
  
Virgil could practically _feel_ the color draining from his face.  
  
_We can't stay,_ Virgil reminded himself. _If we stay, we'll never get home. We'll never see our friends and family again. We'll never find out what's going on with Roman and Patton._ He had no way to tell if his friends or family were doing alright if he stayed in this mockery of the Slytherin Common Room for the rest of his days, and the thought of being _powerless_ to protect those that he cared about most was every bit as frightening as anything he could fathom turning up in The Void.  
  
He still didn't particularly enjoy the mental picture of _suffocating in the middle of an endless void_, but...he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he didn't take this chance.  
  
_"You two ready?"_ Elliott asked. Dee and Elliott were already standing near the edge of the doorway while Virgil and Shane hung back slightly. Virgil and Shane exchanged uneasy looks, then stepped forward.  
  
"Ready as I'll ever be," Virgil admitted.   
  
_"We're all going to hold hands, right?"_ Shane asked. _"So we don't get separated?"_  
  
Virgil felt guilty for the fact that he felt _comforted_ by the slight tremor in Shane's tone as he asked this question. At least he wasn't the only one terrified out of his mind.  
  
Elliott nodded, extending their hand for Shane to grab. It didn't take long before _all_ of their hands were linked. Elliott was holding one of Shane's hands, while Virgil held the other. Virgil's other hand was linked with Dee's.   
  
_"Ready?"_ Dee announced.  
  
"Nope, but what other choice do we have?" Virgil remarked.  
  
_"That's the spirit,"_ Dee smirked. _"3, 2, 1...go!"_ At once, the four stepped forth into The Void.

\------------------------

One lead. That was all Renilda hoped for. _One lead._  
  
_"Still haven't heard from your brothers. You have to promise me you won't get into trouble like them when you get older. Do we have a deal, kiddo?"_ Renilda asked.  
  
Renata babbled and giggled in response.  
  
The corners of Renilda's mouth turned upward. _"That's what I thought. Well, at least I have several years before I have to worry about that with you."_  
  
Renilda let out a sigh. She _hated_ standing around doing nothing, but other than notifying the authorities that her sons were missing, what _could_ she do? She knew they were originally at Patton and Roman's - and that they weren't there anymore. She also knew that they mentioned searching for Patton.  
  
Emile even tried calling Virgil's mobile phone to see if he would answer, with no such luck.  
  
She was desperate to comb every square mile of the United Kingdom for any signs of her sons, but she was also pragmatic enough to realize that this would be an impossible task. She needed a place to begin. Some sort of hint that would get her started in the right direction.  
  
The absolute _last_ thing that she expected was for that hint to come in the form of an owl. An owl's _delivery_, to be exact. And it wasn't even her mail; it was Emile's.

_"Emile, you have an owl!"_ she called out.  
  
As much as she wanted to take time off to search for her sons, she still had work to do. She had Renata to care for. She had her job at St. Mungo's. Sure, Professor Picani could help with Renata's care, and he _did_, but he had a job as well.  
  
Renilda could not help but note that the letter addressed to Professor Picani was written in a familiar scrawl, though as the envelope contained no return address, she had no way of knowing who it was.  
  
She knew it wasn't Virgil or Lionel's handwriting at any rate.

Emile poked his head around the corner. _"Eh...what's up, doc?"_ he asked with a playful grin. Renilda gestured to the envelope now resting on the kitchen table. and Emile regarded it curiously. _"Well that's positively peculiar. I wasn't expecting a letter from anyone."_  
  
_"We don't expect a lot of things that catch us off guard,"_ Renilda noted.  
  
_"I suppose not. After all, if we expected them they wouldn't be catching us off guard at all, would they?"_ Emile chuckled.  
  
Renilda rolled her eyes and playfully swatted at him but smiled. _"Just read the letter. I've been holding off on reading it until you got here, I don't feel like waiting any longer."_  
  
_"Okie dokie artichokie!"_ Emile smiled. He opened the envelope and unfolded the letter, reading through it. His smile dropped at once, and Renilda felt an immediate sense of dread. What would garner that sort of reaction from her partner?  
  
_"What? What is it?"_ Renilda asked him, all playful pretenses dropped.  
  
_"It's from Patton."_


	20. Chapter 20

Virgil didn't know how to describe how..._bizarre_ the Void felt. It somehow felt like everything all at once, and yet...nothing.  
  
Virgil found himself immediately grateful for the fact that the he, Dee, Elliott, and Shane opted to hold hands. He didn't know where he would be without them.  
  
...no, _literally_.  
  
The darkness was all encompassing. Virgil glanced back in the direction of the doorway they stepped through, but there was _nothing_. There was no going back. But...how could they go forward? Which way even _was_ forward.  
  
_"Whoa, this is like something they'd study in the Deparment of Mysteries,"_ he heard Shane say. He could _barely_ hear Shane though, even though he knew they were right next to him.  
  
He could _feel_ that much. That was the only thing he was absolutely certain of, that one hand was still intertwined with Shane's and the other with Dee's. He felt Dee give his hand a squeeze, and Virgil returned the gesture.  
  
_"Virgil? Are you alright?"_ Virgil heard his brother ask. Dee's voice was as muffled as Shane's, but he could still make out the fear in Dee's voice. Virgil knew that Dee wasn't easy to rattle either.  
  
_"Hello? Virgil? Anyone?"_ Dee called out.  
  
Virgil realized with a jolt that Dee hadn't heard Shane, just as Virgil undoubtedly hadn't heard anything from Elliott because Elliott was holding _Shane's_ hand, and the only reason they could even hear each other at all was their prolonged physical contact.  
  
"I'm here," Virgil replied at last.  
  
_"Virgil?"_ Dee and Shane responded simultaneously. Virgil could not help but smile - though it wasn't like anyone would see it in _this_.  
  
It was strange, though, because they'd certainly seen the objects floating in the Void before they stepped into it themselves. It wasn't as if those objects vanished into non-being, just as Virgil, Dee, Shane, and Elliott hadn't.  
  
_"To be or not to be? That is the question, isn't it?"_ Virgil heard Dee chuckle.  
  
"What do you mean, Dee?" Virgil asked, figuring that he ought to specify who he was talking to so that Shane did not get concerned.

_"Look down,"_ Dee instructed. Virgil did as instructed, seeing...  
  
"I don't see anything," Virgil replied.  
  
_"Exactly,"_ Dee stated.  
  
Virgil realized in horror what Dee was getting at. Nothing felt real here, so who was to say that _they_ were real?  
  
Virgil immediately clenched Dee's hand and Shane's hands tighter. Their voices sounded so muffled and far away...  
  
He knew entering this Void was a terrible idea. Now they'd _never_ get home, and they'd never see their friends and family again, and Patton was assuredly in danger, and possibly Roman as well...  
  
It was as if _everything in it's power was conspiring to keep Virgil from getting to the rest of those that he cared for most_-  
  
...and that was when it hit Virgil.  
  
That was _exactly_ what this was. The Slytherin Common Room wasn't really the Slytherin Common Room. The monster that attacked them wasn't _really_ a monster, no matter how real it felt.  
  
_How real it felt._ How real _they_ felt. That the only things that felt real in this incomprehensible Void were the hands and voices of his brother and one of his friends bore new significance. Virgil thought that these hands were the only thing keeping him anchored to reality.  
  
Now...he suspected the opposite.  
  
But he remained hesitant to act on those suspicions. If he were wrong, he might very well sentence himself to...incomprehensible darkness and solitude for the rest of eternity. Virgil might not be much of a people person, but the prospect of _that_ was more than a little terrifying.  
  
If he didn't let go, though...he might unknowingly be sentencing himself to _just that_. Sure, he had Dee to his left and Shane to his right, but were they truly Dee and Shane? Or were they phantoms wearing their faces?  
  
_"Yes, I can see it now. You're content to stay here because it's 'safer'. You're content to stay here and live this pale imitation of reality because there are no risks involved. The risks aren't worth it, are they?"_ The words Dee said earlier echoed in his head.  
  
This might go horribly.  
  
But wasn't it already going horribly? He was floating in _nothingness_. This wasn't going to get them to the others. This wasn't going to get them anywhere.

And if Dee, Shane, and Elliott weren't even Dee, Shane, and Elliott...  
  
...but what if they _were_? Dee's hand was attached to his and no one else's. If he let go of Dee's hand, it wouldn't just be his fate that he would decide, it would be _Dee's_. It was one thing to sentence himself to an eternity of dark desolation, but his brother? After all the strides Dee made as a person?  
  
It seemed like a fate crueler than death.  
  
_To be or not to be? That is the question, isn't it?_ Dee had asked.  
  
Virgil suddenly realized that that was the key. "To be or not to be?" Virgil echoed his brother's words from earlier.  
  
_"What?"_ Dee inquired.  
  
_"Huh?"_ came Shane's response from his right.  
  
"Dee," Virgil began, clarifying which of the two he was talking to before continuing on, "which would you choose? And be honest. We have nothing to lose anymore."

There was a long pause. Virgil heard a mumble to his left.  
  
"Can you say that again, Dee?" Virgil requested.  
  
_"Not to be. I'd choose not to be, and I think you know why,"_ Dee's voice was shaky, and it sounded as though he was fighting back tears.  
  
Virgil gave a sad smile and took a deep breath to steel himself for what he was about to do. "That's what I thought you'd say. Goodbye, Dee."  
  
_"What?! What do you mean?"_ Dee blurted out.  
  
Virgil let out a snort. "Really? A word to the wise - Dee may be torn up about what he's done, but he's come a long way, and he'd _never_ choose 'not to be'...and even if he did, he would lie about it, he wouldn't actually admit to it, no matter how honest I told him to be. He may be an ass sometimes, but he wouldn't want me to know if he was having those sorts of thoughts. He'd want to protect me from them, because that's the reason he lies in the first place - to protect himself and others."  
  
_"I...wha..."_ he heard Dee's voice splutter.  
  
"Secondly, if you were really so torn up over that admission, your voice wouldn't have gone right back to normal after I surprised you. You're a convincing fake, I give you that, but you're not my brother," Virgil declared. "And because you're not my brother, I don't feel bad for doing _this_!" Virgil shouted. He closed his eyes, held his breath, and let go.


	21. Chapter 21

Virgil's body felt heavy.  
  
_Felt_. That was a good sign.  
  
He opened his eyes, but had to squeeze them shut immediately after because _Merlin_ it was bright.  
  
_Bright._  
  
Virgil something warm and light bubble up within him, and before he knew it he was laughing. He continued to laugh even as he heard movement nearby.  
  
_"Goodness, has he gone mad? What am I going to tell our mother?"_ someone huffed. No, not just someone. _Dee_. That was Dee's voice. _That was Dee's voice._ Virgil felt like jumping for joy, but he'd settle for laughter for now. He had to get used to the sensation of his body having weight again.  
  
_"Is he awake?"_ another voice joined in. Paige's, if he had to guess, though he wasn't as attuned to her voice as he was to certain other voices.  
  
_"He's either awake or dreaming about something hilarious,"_ another voice contributed to the conversation. That one he recognized as Chelsea's.  
  
_"I don't think any of the rest of us had this sort of reaction, did we?"_ That voice was Elliott's.  
  
_"Logan, you were the first to wake up, what do you think?"_ That was Astr-wait, _Logan_?  
  
Virgil's eyes shot open. He let out a slight hiss at the light, but his eyes were still better adjusted than they were the first time. He was able to keep them open, though only a smidgen, but that was enough to make out that there were several figures surrounding him.  
  
_"Virgil?"_ One figure pushed his way to the forefront. _"You did it. You woke up!"_ Logan blurted out. Virgil blinked a few times in an attempt to focus his vision. The first clear image he saw after opening his eyes was Logan's smiling face.  
  
"Good morning, L," Virgil grinned back. Logan briefly furrowed his brow, and Virgil realized that Logan did not understand his words - the curse was back in effect.  
  
Virgil went to reach for his phone, and Logan shook his head. _"No need. I may not understand your words but I understood your meaning. It's good to see you as well."_

Virgil ran a hand through his hair, peering around now that his eyes were fully adjusted to the light. He saw Dee, Logan, Chelsea, Astrit, and Paige gathered around, but that wasn't right...  
  
Virgil had too many questions. He couldn't rely on Logan reading his body language for this one. He retrieved his phone and quickly keyed in his question before pressing play. "Where are Era and Shane?"  
  
_"They're still asleep,"_ Paige admitted in a quiet tone.  
  
_"And, as I'm sure you've already guess, the sort of sleep that they're in isn't exactly your garden variety nap,"_ Elliott added.  
  
"Were we all affected?" Virgil wondered.  
  
_"We were,"_ Logan replied. _"I was the first to wake, followed by Dee. Chelsea joined us next, then Elliott. Paige and Astrit regained consciousness shortly before you did."_  
  
"How long were we out?" Virgil asked next.  
  
_"The answer varies from person to person, as you would expect. I suspect that I was out for a total of 18 hours. Dee awoke approximately 12 hours after myself,"_ Logan explained.  
  
...Dee was out for _over a day _and he was the second to wake up?  
  
_"It was at this point that we opted to move our location. We were unsure as to whether or not Roman would return, or perhaps even someone affiliated with the Council. Regardless, we did not feel safe at Roman and Patton's home, and thus we Apparated here - an area unknown to Roman, and thus safe from any more threats he may unleash upon us while we recover,"_ Logan elaborated, gesturing to the unfamiliar room around them.  
  
_"You're all welcome, by the way,"_ Dee said with a snort.  
  
"Where is here, exactly?" Virgil questioned next. That might be nice to know, as he did not recognize anything surrounding him other than his friends.  
  
Logan smiled sheepishly. _"It is an abandoned cottage in the woods near the house my parents and I lived in when I was a small child."_  
  
_"Good thing it was still abandoned. That could have ended badly,"_ Astrit remarked.

_"What, you don't think the new Muggle occupants would have welcomed a bunch of young adults randomly appearing in the middle of their living room?"_ Dee grinned.  
  
_"Probably would have garnered a few strange looks,"_ Paige reasoned.  
  
_"A few strange looks? That would be generous of them. I'd say the best case scenario in that case would be that they would call the police on us,"_ Astrit shook his head, looking bemused.  
  
Virgil realized that Logan never finished answering one of his prior questions, and thus Virgil didn't get the answer he was _truly_ looking for with that question - How long was _he_ out for?  
  
_"How long were the rest of us out?"_ he asked.  
  
_"Oh, right. My apologies, I allowed us to get off task,"_ Logan cleared his throat.

_"I was the next to wake up,"_ Chelsea told him. _"I believe Logan and Dee told me that Dee was up a day and a half before I was."_  
  
_A day and a half?!_  
  
_"Astrit and Paige did not regain consciousness for quite some time after that,"_ Logan continued. _"They did so around 2pm today which was approximately..."_ Logan looked to his watch. _"...six hours ago"_  
  
2pm? 2pm on what day? With the number of hours that passed, Virgil figured that they had to have been getting up to 3 or 4 days at this point. Renilda had to be worried sick, and who knew where Roman and Patton were at this point?  
  
And Shane and Era still had yet to wake up...


	22. Chapter 22

Virgil still had plenty of questions, but was not certain that he wanted to ask them in front of _everyone_. It wasn't even that he distrusted any of his friends. It was just...a _lot_, to wake up surrounded by so many of them when he still had yet to fully process what he'd gone through in his...dream? Was that the right thing to call it?  
  
Logan went to check up on Era and Shane, inviting Virgil to assist him. Virgil agreed, because he still had plenty of questions and perhaps helping Logan might lead him to answers for a couple of them.  
  
Or more than that, even. _"You have something - or many somethings - on your mind,"_ Logan observed.  
  
_"Is it that obvious?"_ Virgil said via his phone.  
  
_"Did you believe I invited you here because I was actually in need of an assistant?"_ Logan arched an eyebrow.  
  
Virgil wasn't sure how to respond to that, because he didn't know what Logan was _doing_.  
  
_"Hmmm. I suppose you would have no reason not to believe so. You regained consciousness not so long ago yourself,"_ Logan considered.  
  
_"What do you do?"_ Virgil wondered.  
  
_"Mostly, I observe their response levels to various external stimuli. Observe,"_ Logan directed Virgil.  
  
_"Lumos,"_ Logan muttered after retrieving his wand from his pocket. He lifted Era's eyelids, pointing the lighted end of his wand toward her face. He furrowed his brow, then did the same thing with Shane.  
  
_"Nox,"_ he incanted once he was finished, slipping his wand back into his pocket. _"It is as I suspected. There is minimal pupillary response."_  
  
_"What does that mean?"_ Virgil inquired.  
  
_"In a fully conscious human, the pupils will constrict in the presence of light and dilate when that light is taken away. When one's consciousness is impaired, however, this reflex does not always behave in the manner that it is supposed to - if at all,"_ Logan explained.  
  
_"So they're asleep?"_ Virgil guessed.

_"In a sense, yes,"_ Logan replied. _"In the Muggle world, their condition would be classified as comatose. That being said, I do not feel comfortable using that descriptor in this instance."_  
  
"Why not?"  
  
_"There are differences. In Muggle patients in a similar state, it may be necessary to utilize machines to aid the body in carrying out it's normal functions. This is not the case with Era and Shane. In addition, we've not needed to employ the use of supplementary food sources. It seems as though their bodies have no need for nourishment in this state."_ Logan explained.

"How would you describe this then?" Virgil frowned.  
  
_"An enchanted sleep, akin to Aurora's condition in the Muggle fairy tale Sleeping Beauty. Only in this instance, the key to regaining consciousness is not something so sentimental as true love's kiss. Instead, I hypothesize it is the recognition that one is in such a state in the first place. You had vivid dreams as well, I presume?"_ Logan inquired.  
  
Virgil nodded. He had a feeling that Logan at the very least did as well.  
  
_"As did Dee, Chelsea, Astrit, Elliott, Paige, and myself "_ Logan said. confirming Virgil's suspicions on the matter. _"I formulated the idea prior to Dee regaining consciousness. Once Dee awoke, we began to discuss our experiences. I did not consider my hypothesis a valid theory until Chelsea awoke and confirmed that they, too, had vivid dreams that they only awoke from when she realized that she was dreaming."_  
  
As Logan spoke, Virgil realized that he had a few questions to ask, but only _some_ of them were questions he felt he should direct to Logan.  
  
"I assume everyone else had shared similar experiences?" Virgil asked.  
  
Logan nodded. _"Did you?"_  
  
Virgil knew _that_ was coming.

"Sort of," Virgil replied.  
  
_"Sort of?"_ Logan looked puzzled.  
  
"Hate to be a fly in the ointment, but I didn't wake up when I realized what was happening wasn't real," Virgil admitted.  
  
Logan's face fell, and Virgil felt a wave of guilt wash over him. But at the same time, Logan needed to know - what if Era and/or Shane had a similar experience?  
  
_"Thank you for informing me of this, Virgil,"_ Logan murmured once he recovered. _"I may have to rework my hypothesis."_ Virgil came to the realization that Logan's face did not fall because he was upset about being wrong, but rather in contemplation.  
  
And if this was a mystery that Logan was looking to solve, Virgil felt that he ought to be entirely honest with Logan. "I did wake up when I realized that something else wasn't real, though, if that helps."  
  
_"...it may,"_ Logan arched a brow, pulling his hand away from Era's wrist, where he presumed Logan was checking Era's pulse. _"Can you explain in further detail what transpired?"_  
  
"Dee, Elliott, Shane, and I woke up in the Slytherin Common Room," Virgil began. He pressed play after this statement, so that Logan would not be left waiting for the entirety of the story and would at least have _something_ to mull over as he waited.  
  
"We thought we were genuinely in the Slytherin Common Room at first, but then we opened the door to a void," Virgil told Logan.  
  
_"...a void? What do you mean by that?"_ Logan furrowed his brow in confusion.  
  
"A void. Complete and utter blackness," Virgil clarified. "We tried Apparition and Floo, but we couldn't get out."  
  
_"Naturally, as that appears to be the nature of the enchanted sleep,"_ Logan deduced.  
  
Virgil nodded in agreement before continuing. "Several green tentacles came out of the fireplace and trapped us, trying to drag us to the fire."  
  
_"That is perhaps the most peculiar attribute the dreams appear to have in common - the presence of green tentacles,"_ Logan arched a brow. _"Anyway, continue."_  
  
Virgil was grateful that his explanation was being broken up into small chunks, as it made it easier for him to type out onto his phone for text to speech. "That's when I realized that what we were experiencing wasn't real."  
  
_"Because of the green tentacles?"_ Logan commented with a bemused expression.  
  
Virgil shook his head. "Because I called out to Elliott to look out and they told me that they actually understood me."  
  
Logan's eyes went wide. _"Huh. Yes, I suppose that would do it."_


	23. Chapter 23

"I realized that Dee wasn't the real Dee at that point, so I let go of his hand," Virgil told Logan after recounting the rest of his dream.  
  
_"That had to be frightening,"_ Logan noted.  
  
"Incredibly," Virgil agreed. He was grateful for the text to speech program in this instance. Text to speech did not account for nerves, and Virgil _knew_ that his voice would be shaking were he actually speaking out loud.  
  
Which was a bit silly when he thought about it. Everything was _fine_ now. He knew it was safe. He knew he'd made the right decision.  
  
That said, the fact that it was the correct decision did not detract from the weight of said decision. Had he made the wrong decision, he might have sentenced not only himself to eternal darkness and solitude but his _brother_ as well.  
  
_But I was right. It wasn't Dee. I did what I needed to do,_ Virgil thought to himself.  
  
_What if it truly_ was _Dee, though, and I'd need to sacrifice him to ensure my own survival? Would I have made the same decision? Would I have..._ he couldn't even bear to finish that train of thought.  
  
_Have you ever imagined killing your brother?_  
  
The question forced it's way to the forefront of Virgil's consciousness. Not only was he imagining it, he couldn't seem to _stop_ thinking about it! What kind of _monster_ would think like that?  
  
He cast the Cruciatus Curse on Patton, though, didn't he? And despite a brief flare of guilt, he'd enjoyed it. He'd been convinced he was doing the right thing, that Patton _deserved_ what he did to him...  
  
Was that the real him all along?  
  
_"Virgil, darling, I've pulled up a chair behind you. I think you should have a seat,"_ Logan told him. Virgil jolted, _so_ focused on his own inner turmoil that he nearly forgot where he was and who he was with. Virgil took a seat, trying to steady his racing thoughts as a few tears slipped down his cheeks.  
  
...Logan was _definitely_ going to have questions now. And how would Virgil even explain what was happening?  
  
"I think we should break up," Virgil blurted out.  
  
_"What? Can you repeat that?"_ Logan requested.  
  
"I think..." Virgil began, then stopped himself. He proceeded to type the phrase into his phone and pressed play. "I think we should break up."  
  
Virgil winced upon hearing the words replayed back to him. They sounded so _horrible_, and he didn't actually _want_ to lose Logan, but...  
  
...but this had to be the right decision.  
  
_"Virgil, where is this coming from?"_ Logan asked quietly.  
  
More tears joined their brethren, falling from Virgil's eyes at a more steady rate by this point. It was hard to catch his breath, and thus it was doubtful that Logan would receive any sort of sensible answer to his inquiry at any point soon.  
  
_"It is alright, take your time. I can wait for your answer,"_ Logan told him in a steady voice, running his hand along Virgil's back in a comforting motion.  
  
_How dare he_. How dare he accept Logan's comfort when he did not deserve it?  
  
...and yet it was all Virgil could do to focus on the sensation of Logan running his hand gently along Virgil's back, to actually allow himself to be calmed by Logan's efforts, if only to _tell_ Logan what he needed to know.  
  
"You deserve better," Virgil managed to say through his phone.  
  
_"...what?"_ Logan sounded incredulous.  
  
"You deserve a better person," Virgil clarified. The phone made it sound so matter of fact. _Good_.  
  
_"...falsehood. What brought on this cognitive distortion that you are somehow unworthy of my love?"_ Logan's voice was still even, but barely so. Virgil had the distinct feeling that Logan's tone was like a rubber band stretched to an impossible length, under so much tension that it could snap at any moment.

Virgil was tempted to hold it all in...but Logan deserved to know that it wasn't that _Logan_ that was the problem, it was _Virgil_, and he would argue that point until he was blue in the face.  
  
So he explained it _all_ to Logan. Logan looked positively _stunned_, and Virgil grew more confident that he was making the correct decision. Logan had _no idea_ just how _terrible_ of a person Virgil was. How could he lie to his boyfriend like that? How could he lie to _himself_?  
  
"Virgil...you are not a terrible person, nor is it wrong for these thoughts to pop into your head," Logan informed him.  
  
"Its not wrong to think about killing your own brother? Sounds fake but okay." The text to speech ensured that Virgil's tone was even, but the incredulous look that accompanied it would help Logan to fill in the blanks.

_"Virgil...we've discussed these thoughts before. They're called intrusive thoughts. Having such thoughts does not mean that you will act on said thoughts, especially when such thoughts are clearly causing you acute distress,"_ Logan told Virgil calmly.  
  
Virgil chewed on his bottom lip, staring down at his phone for several seconds before formulating his response. "I have acted on them, though. I let go of Dee's hand. I tortured Patton."  
  
_"Those were extenuating circumstances that in no way indicate who you are as a person. You let go of Dee's hand in a_ dream_. And, as you and I both know, you were not in your right mind when you used the Cruciatus Curse on Patton. Your memories were addled to the point where you did not recognize Patton as anything other than a Muggleborn stranger, and you acted according to what your addled memories told you that you ought to do to a Muggleborn stranger"_ Logan reminded him. _"The one thing these two instances have in common is that they both came as a result of enchantments. The dreams we had were designed to frighten us. One of your most prominent fears is harming your friends and family, and thus your dream played upon that. My own dream played upon my repeated failure to solve a simple set of puzzles that would allow for my escape from a room that I was trapped in."_  
  
Logan's words...helped. Virgil did not feel 100% better, and he knew that would not happen for a while, after what he'd gone through. But Logan was throwing him a lifeline that allowed him to stay afloat instead of drowning within his own thoughts.

He knew that he needed to swim back to shore eventually, but for now he was content to tread water. He could already breathe easier.  
  
Then Logan let out a gasp.  
  
_"I believe...ugh, how could I have not seen this sooner?"_ Logan blurted out.   
  
Virgil eyed him curiously.  
  
_"Please fetch me one of Patton's letters as soon as you possibly can. I...have a theory as to what may have happened to Patton."_


	24. Chapter 24

Virgil wanted to do what Logan instructed, but...how? The physical copy of Patton's letter was at Roman and Patton's home at _best_, and with _Roman_ at worst. "The letter is back at Roman and Patton's place," Virgil reminded Logan.  
  
_"That is not entirely correct,"_ Logan responded. _"The original letter that Patton left for Roman is still located there, yes, but not the copy that I transcribed for our use to analyze during our search for Patton. That copy is in my bag, which is in the living room."_  
  
Virgil nodded at once, heading for the door to the side room they were currently located within. He paused, turning back to Logan before asking another question through his phone "Should I bring everyone else back with me?" he asked.  
  
Logan shook his head. _"Not yet. I do not wish to concern them with this theory until I have more proof that it is a valid one. To do so, I need to reassess what Patton said in his letter to Roman."_  
  
Virgil nodded to show Logan that he understood, then ventured back into the living room.  
  
Dee and Elliott were discussing theories to keep themselves occupied. Chelsea, Astrit, and Paige were also talking, though Virgil was not close enough to them to make out what they were saying. He made his way over to Logan's bag. He crouched down, unzipping the bag. Logan's bag was impressively organized, and thus he was able to locate Logan's notebook with relative ease. Letting out a sigh of relief, Virgil pushed himself into a standing position and turned to head back to the side room where Logan was waiting.  
  
As he turned, he came face to face with Chelsea. He took a couple of steps back in surprise, nearly tripping over Logan's bag in the process.  
  
_"How are they?"_ Chelsea asked him.  
  
It took Virgil a few seconds to recognize that Chelsea was asking about Era and Shane. "They're still asleep."  
  
Chelsea sighed, eyes downcast. _"I figured as much. At least it's not a change for the worse, I suppose."_ She headed back to Astrit and Paige, presumably to share the news with them as well. Virgil chewed on his bottom lip as he felt a pang of guilt, wishing that he'd come bearing good news concerning Era and Shane instead.  
  
Though he might have good news concerning Patton soon? It all depended upon Logan's theory and what it entailed.  
  
Oh, if _only_ Virgil knew..  
  
Virgil returned to Logan, wordlessly handing his boyfriend his notebook.  
  
_"Thank you, Virgil,"_ Logan replied. He took the notebook and immediately began to flip through it. He stopped on a page halfway through the book. _"Aha,"_ Logan said at last.  
  
He cleared his throat and began to read. _"I'm sorry for this. I don't want you to think that any of this is your fault, or that I am no longer in love with you. I assure you that that isn't the case! I do still love you, but that's why I have to leave.  
  
The longer I'm close to you, the more danger you'll be in. You'll be safer away from me. Trust me, this is for the best."_  
  
Logan set the book down with a grave expression. _"As I suspected, this letter thoroughly supports my theory. I would even argue that it could be used as outright evidence."_  
  
Virgil didn't know what to say to that.

_"I can't help but notice that Patton is expressing all too familiar sentiments in this letter,"_ Logan observed.  
  
"Familiar sentiments?"  
  
_"Yes. For example, Patton expresses that he desires to break up with Roman, despite the fact that he clearly still loves him with all of his heart. Sound familiar? It should."_  
  
Virgil recognized that Logan was referring to _Virgil_ with that statement. "That's different. Patton broke up with Roman because someone was threatening him, didn't he?"  
  
_"We have yet to uncover any sort of concrete evidence to support that theory. We have operated under the hypothesis that someone is threatening Patton, or that someone forced Patton to write that letter before whisking him away. I no longer believe that to be the case."_  
  
Virgil nodded. He was starting to suspect where Logan was going with this.  
  
_"I do not doubt that Patton perceived a threat to Roman's life, but I do not feel that his perceptions matched reality,"_ Logan concluded. _"It is all evident in the wording, I cannot believe that I did not see it sooner. Patton states that Roman will be safer away from him. He does not outright state it, but I am almost certainly that Patton was operating under the mistaken belief that_ he alone _was a danger to Roman, and that removing himself from the equation would ensure Roman's safety."_  
  
Logan's gaze shifted from Virgil to the notebook as Logan narrowed his eyes. _"I do not know what that bastard did to Patton to allown such beliefs to proliferate in Patton's mind, but I am certain that the blame falls on the same man who did this to us. The circumstances are too similar."_  
  
"You think he was having intrusive thoughts too," Virgil summarized.

_"Precisely,"_ Logan agreed.  
  
"And you think Roman did something to bring those thoughts on?" Virgil frowned.  
  
_"It would stand to reason. I know that intrusive thoughts are not a new phenomenon for you, but they were certainly exacerbated by the dream that you experienced while in the enchanted sleep, and I suspect that something similar is at play where Patton is concerned,"_ Logan declared.

"I mean, that's all fine and dandy, but what are we going to do with this information? We don't know where Patton is," Virgil reminded Logan.  
  
_"We do not, but now we will be better equipped to oppose any of Patton's inevitable self-deprecating arguments when we do find him,"_ Logan countered.  
  
Of course, all of that was dependent upon their finding Patton first. None of this would mean _anything_ if they could not locate Patton.  
  
_"We need to discuss this with the others,"_ Logan announced.


	25. Chapter 25

Virgil and Logan re-entered the living room. They waited until Chelsea, Astrit, Paige, Dee, and Elliott were finished with their prior conversations. Virgil and Logan decided that Logan would be the one to explain his theory, as Virgil would have to type all of his words into his text to speech program ahead of time and thus it would take him twice as long to complete the same task. Besides, it was Logan's theory in the first place, so it made sense for him to explain it to the others.  
  
After Logan did so, there was a long silence. Virgil played with one of the zippers on the sleeves of his hoodie as he awaited the others' response. He thought Logan's theory held merit, but did the others?  
  
_"You think Roman did this to Patton? He loves Patton, though,"_ Paige looked troubled by Logan's suggestions.  
  
_"Yeah, well, either Roman's been playing us for a long time or this Roman isn't the Roman we know,"_ Elliott reminded her.  
  
_"And the Roman we dealt with back at Patton and Roman's house would_ definitely _do something like this,"_ Astrit agreed.  
  
_"What a bastard. How long was he screwing with Patton's mind like that?"_ Chelsea huffed.  
  
"Since London at least," Virgil announced through his phone. "Dee and I first noticed Roman acting weird in London."  
  
_"And Patton started acting weird not long after that,"_ Paige realized.  
  
_"And he told us it was because of the wedding? What a liar,"_ Dee sighed.  
  
_"He only lied because he did not want to bother us with this, from the sound of it. He was probably ashamed of what was going through his head and didn't want us to worry,"_ Paige frowned.  
  
_"When did I chastise him for lying?"_ Dee pointed out. Virgil had to admit that he had a point. Dee didn't chastise the fact that Patton lied, he'd merely pointed it out.  
  
Chelsea let out a sigh of frustration. _"This doesn't bring us any closer to finding where Patton is, though. We know why he disappeared, but we don't know where he went!"_  
  
_"We don't, but we can narrow our search area now that we know Patton's motivation,"_ Logan observed.  
  
_"We can?"_ Chelsea sounded skeptical.  
  
_"We can,"_ Astrit's eyes went wide. Virgil could only assume he'd stumbled upon the same theory that Logan did. _"He ran away because he thought that he was putting Roman in danger."_  
  
_"Well yeah, but how does that...ohhhhhhhh, I get it!"_ Chelsea gasped. _"He was afraid of hurting Roman, so he wanted to get as far away from Roman as possible."_  
  
_"How does that help us when we don't know where Roman is either?"_ Elliott pointed out.  
  
"It's not just Roman that he wanted to get away from," Virgil chimed in.  
  
_"He wanted to get away from the rest of us too, didn't he?"_ Paige said with a sad smile as the realization hit her too. _"Oh Patton..."_  
  
_"Not just us,"_ Logan reminded them.  
  
_"Everyone. He was afraid of hurting those he cared for most, so it follows that he was afraid of hurting others as well. He's not just hiding from Roman and from us, he's trying to get as far away from_ people in general _as he can. Which means he's hiding out somewhere sparsely populated. That's what you meant by narrowing our field, isn't it Logan?"_ Chelsea hypothesized, looking to Logan for confirmation.  
  
Logan nodded. _"Exactly."_  
  
_"That's still a lot of places to look,"_ Elliott ran a hand through their hair. They sounded overwhelmed, and Virgil could hardly blame them for that.  
  
_"It is, but it also means that we need not look in areas like London or Liverpool or Hogwarts or anywhere else that might have a high population,"_ Logan shrugged.  
  
That was...some comfort, but not much, especially now that they had a fair idea of what happened with Patton. Virgil knew that he wasn't the only one eager to go to Patton and explain that _none of this was his fault_.  
  
If only he'd done something sooner, if only he'd _said_ something sooner! Virgil did not want to push Patton, to make Patton talk before he was ready, but if he had, would any of this have happened?  
  
...would Virgil and the others have _recognized_ what was happening then?

  
It was all a moot point, Virgil supposed, as he and the others could not turn back time and change things that had already happened. It was theoretically possible with a time turner, but that would open up a brand new can of worms that held the potential to make things _even worse than they were now_. Not to mention they weren't typically available to the average citizen in the wizarding world...  
  
...and Virgil was allowing himself to get a _bit_ too carried away with that idea.  
  
_"I have one more question. I get that you think that this is what Roman did to Patton, because it does sound pretty similar to what's going on with some of our dreams, and I don't disagree with you,"_ Astrit interjected. _"But our dreams came as the result of an enchanted sleep that he put us in in the first place. How did he get into Patton's head?"_  
  
Virgil could not help but let out a snort. Of course. They might have uncovered _some_ answers, but those answers inevitably lead to more questions.

\------------------------  
  
Delilah sat in the den of the Duke home, flipping through Magick Moste Evile. The book was _dreadfully_ outdated, Delilah was coming to find, but it did have a few interesting tidbits hidden within.  
  
_"I'm going out,"_ Remus announced, swooping past Delilah and heading to the door.  
  
_"...what?"_ Delilah blinked in confusion. _"So soon? I thought you said you had everything taken care of?"_  
  
_"And I want to check up on my work! You got a problem with that, mummy dearest, or do I have permission to go out and play?"_ Remus folded his arms across his chest and arched an eyebrow.  
  
Delilah bristled, then let out a huff and gestured to the door. _"As long as you promise to never,_ ever _call me that again, you may go."_  
  
Remus beamed, clapping his hands together in delight. _"Awww, thank you mummy dearest!"_   
  
_"REMUS DUKE!"_ Delilah snarled as Remus danced through the door. She let out a growl of frustration as she went to check on their prisoner. She smirked in satisfaction at the sight of an unconscious Roman laying against the opposite wall, content with what she saw.  
  
There was no need to take a closer look, and thus no need for Delilah to realize that "Roman's" hands were no longer bound.  
  
In the meantime, as "Remus" closed the door behind himself, he leaned against the door and let out a small sigh of relief. His look of twisted glee was quickly replaced with a look of triumph. _"Two can play at this game, brother dearest,"_ Roman grinned before setting off to find his friends.


	26. Chapter 26

Now that _most_ of them were awake, they could actually put a plan into place.  
  
Some of their number would stay behind to look after Era and Shane, while the rest would set out to continue the search for Patton and Roman.  
  
Chelsea, Paige, Astrit, and Elliott opted to stay at the cottage with Era and Shane. As those closest to the aforementioned duo, this did not surprise Virgil in the least.  
  
_"Keep us updated, if you will?"_ Logan asked the four.  
  
_"How do you propose we do that?"_ Elliott asked.  
  
_"I know that at least one of you had a mobile phone in their possession,"_ Logan replied.  
  
_"But we're out in the middle of nowhere. There's no reception out here. See?"_ Astrit showed Logan on his phone.  
  
Logan frowned and retrieved his own phone, presumably to see if the same applied to his own phone. Virgil was so focused on using his phone to translate text to speech that he neglected to pay attention to the reception in the corner. When he looked, he saw that he, too, had no reception on his phone.  
  
_"Looks like that's out. Owl?"_ Chelsea suggested.  
  
_"...that would work a lot better if we actually had an owl here that we could use,"_ Elliott noted.  
  
"We will send an owl to you. The owl can accompany you until you have news of your own, at which point you can sent the owl back to us,"[/i] Logan reasoned.  
  
_"Where are_ we _going to find an owl if we're going to be looking for Patton?"_ Dee arched a brow.  
  
_"At your mother's flat, of course,"_ Logan replied.  
  
_"...my mother's...why are we stopping at my mother's flat?!"_ Dee gaped.  
  
_"Two reasons. One, it is the easiest and cheapest way for us to obtain an owl. Two, your mother and Professor Picani are aware that we left to pursue Patton. That was a number of days ago at this point,"_ Logan explained.  
  
\------------------------  
  
Renilda sifted through yet another issue of the Daily Prophet, scouring for clues. Renata was fast asleep in her crib the next room over.  
  
Two loud pops echoed through the room, and Renata immediately began to cry. Renilda hopped up from her seat at once. She retrieved her wand and immediately set off for her daughter's room. Her stomach lurched when she heard voices within her daughter's room. She narrowed her eyes, ready to curse any intruder who would _dare_ come after her daughter into oblivion.

As she approached the door, however, she nearly dropped her wand in surprise. She was close enough to hear the voices more clearly at this point, and they were _familiar_.  
  
_"Good job, Logan,"_ a young man's voice hissed in a chastising tone. Renilda would recognize that voice anywhere.  
  
_"Me? You Apparated into this room as well!"_ Another voice retorted. _Logan's_.  
  
Renilda could no longer stand to wait, and pulled the door open.

She was greeted by the sight of her two sons and Logan fussing over Renata. Renata was in Virgil's arms. She would let out the occasional whine, but as Virgil ran his hand through her hair and hummed, she simmered down.  
  
_"You're safe,"_ Renilda said with a sigh of relief. Relief, however, soon gave way to exasperation. _"Why didn't you tell us where you were going? Why didn't you answer your phone? Emile called you several times!"_ she scolded.  
  
_"There was no reception in our previous location,"_ Logan explained.  
  
Renilda arched an eyebrow at that. _"And just what is that supposed to mean?"_  
  
Logan's eyes widened slightly at that. _"Oh, right. Pureblood. Mobile phones operate via towers that offer reception. We took refuge in a sparsely populated area in which there was no tower, thus we were unable to send and receive messages via mobile."_  
  
Virgil set a now sleeping Renata back into her crib and looked to his phone. Now that they were back in London, he saw _several_ missed messages on his phone. A pang of guilt shot through him as he read through them, each message growing more and more concerned in its tone.  
  
_"Why were you in a sparcely populated area in the first place? Searching for Patton? You could have at least told us first! We were worried sick!"_ Renilda continued on.  
  
_"The majority of our number were unconscious for a significant length of time,"_ Logan admitted.  
  
_"...what?"_ Renilda stared back in horror. _"What happened?"_  
  
"We found a wolf in sheep's clothing in our midst," Virgil said through his phone once he finished going through his messages.  
  
_"What?!"_ Renilda gaped. _"Who?!"_  
  
_"Roman,"_ Dee snapped.

_"Roman? But how?"_ Renilda frowned.  
  
_"We suspect that he is the party behind Patton's disappearance,"_ Logan declared.  
  
_"...this is a lot to take in,"_ Renilda admitted. _"How could_ Roman _of all people be behind Patton's disappearance?"_  
  
"We don't think Roman is exactly himself right now," Virgil informed her.  
  
If only he knew just how true that statement was in this instance.  
  
_"We believe that he may be under the influence of the same sort of enchantment that your ex-husband placed Virgil under,"_ Logan elaborated.  
  
Renilda's expression grew stony at the mention of Linus. _"I wouldn't put it past the Princes, if they are cut from the same cloth as that scoundrel."_ Her fury quickly gave way to confusion. _"Do you think he may have kidnapped Patton, then, and forged the note?"_  
  
Virgil, Logan, and Dee all shook their heads. Logan spoke up. _"We believe that Patton technically departed of his own volition, but he did so under duress. Duress that Roman indirectly placed him under."  
  
_"That would explain the letter that Emile received from him,"_ _Renilda frowned in contemplation._  
  
_"...what?"_ _Dee blinked._  
  
_"Say that again?" Virgil added._  
  
_"...oh, right! I was so excited to see you lot safe that I didn't tell you, did I? Emile received a letter from Patton,"_ _Renilda told him._  
  
_"...that may be of some use,"_ _Logan noted, clearing his throat._ _"Did the letter give any hints as to his current location?"_  
  
_Renilda shook her head sadly. __"No, but he did express an interest in talking with Emile. He said that he needed help, and that Emile might be the only one who could offer it."_  
  
_"...then Picani might be our best hope in finding Patton,"__ Logan realized. 

A knock on the door to the flat jarred her from their conversation.__ "I bet that's him now. I'll be back in a moment."_ _Renilda marched off to the living room._  
  
_Virgil, Logan, and Dee might not be able to hear what was going on, but they certainly heard._  
  
_"Emile? I didn't think you'd be home so s-"_ _Renilda's voice dropped off at that point. She spoke a few seconds later, but her tone was icy._ _"You're not Emile."_  
  
_"No. I'm not,"__ Roman's voice responded.


	27. Chapter 27

Virgil, Dee, and Logan burst into the room, wands drawn.  
  
_"What are_ you _doing here?"_ Dee snapped.  
  
_"...I see you've caught wind that something is amiss. I suppose that's a start,"_ Roman replied with a forced sounding chuckle. _"I'll start by saying it's a very long story..."_  
  
"You can start by leaving," Virgil told him.  
  
_"...what?"_ Roman's smile fell, but something was strange about his expression. He looked at Virgil quizzically, almost as if he was noticing something about Virgil that he'd never seen before.  
  
_"Leave,"_ Renilda demanded, using her body to block Roman's view of her sons and Logan.  
  
_"But I don't know where else to go!"_ Roman pleaded.  
  
"Why not spend some time with the Council? That is where your loyalties lie now, is it not?" Dee remarked.  
  
Roman's eyes went wide. "...you think...oh Merlin, what did that fiend do?"  
  
"What fiend?" Virgil asked.  
  
"Rem...oh right, you know nothing about Remus," Roman sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Do you have any idea where Patton might be?"  
  
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Renilda folded her arms across her chest.  
  
"As his fiance, it is my sworn duty to protect Patton," Roman declared.  
  
"Some job you're doing of that," Dee sneered.  
  
Roman blanched at that. _"You're absolutely correct. I have not done my due diligence when it comes to protecting my love, and now he is in trouble because of it. I need to set things right, but to do so I need your assistance."  
_  
Virgil frowned at the unmistakable tremor in Roman's tone. This sure sounded like 'normal' Roman (not that 'normal' Roman was ever 100% normal in the first place), but they'd already been burned before.  
  
_"I admit, I am growing more and more inclined to believe you,"_ Logan announced. Virgil realized that Logan did not contribute much to the conversation prior to this point, and suspected that he was observing Roman closely during that time.

_"You are?"_ Dee eyed Logan skeptically.  
  
_"If he is acting, his act has yet to waver in the slightest,"_ Logan shrugged.  
  
"That can't be where the bar is though, not after everything that has happened," Virgil pointed out.  
  
_"You continue to stare at Virgil every time he speaks,"_ Logan observed, pushing his glasses up on his nose and peering pointedly at Roman. _"Why is that?"_  
  
_"He's talking. How is he talking?"_ Roman frowned. _"Or...how are we understanding him? And that's not his voice..."_  
  
Virgil gaped at Roman as if he had two heads.  
  
_"...are you kidding me? You're going to play stupid?"_ Virgil glanced over at Dee, relieved to see that Dee looked equally as stunned as he felt.  
  
Logan, however, looked contemplative. _"How do you believe that Virgil is communicating?"_  
  
Roman's opened his mouth as if he were about to answer, then closed it again. The effect would be humorous were Roman's behavior not so _bizarre_. _"Did you break the curse?"_ Roman asked, eyes shifting from Logan to Virgil.  
  
Virgil felt himself tense under Roman's gaze, though he forced himself to remain resolute as he glared back at Roman. He did not want to remove his eyes from Roman to take the time to type out a response.  
  
_"...I'm guessing that's a no, then?"_ Roman frowned.

Renilda continued to eye Roman warily, wand clenched tight within her hand.  
  
_"Roman, what did you and Patton fix us for dinner when we visited your home to discuss wedding preparations?"_ Logan inquired.  
  
_"I...I must confess that I do not recall. It must have slipped my mind,"_ Roman responded with a nervous chuckle.  
  
_"How peculiar. One would think that you would recall the occasion in question, as you and Patton put a lot of effort into it,"_ Logan pressed on.  
  
_"I..."_ Roman looked distinctly uncomfortable now.  
  
_"How can we trust that you are who you say you are when you cannot recall something as simple as this?"_ Logan fixed Roman with an even gaze, _eerily_ calm given the circumstances. Virgil's heart was pounding; he didn't know how Logan could do it. Renilda rounded upon Roman, raising her wand and looking ready to act at any moment.  
  
_"I...I don't have an answer for that. I apologize,"_ Roman's voice wavered, and he sounded as if he were about to cry. This made Logan's next action even _more_ striking than it might have been otherwise.  
  
Logan smiled. _"Congratulations, you passed the test. That was precisely the answer that I was looking for."_

_"I did?"_ Roman blinked, clearly as caught off guard by this statement as Virgil and the others were.  
  
_"He did? He can't even answer what..."_ Dee's eyes went wide. _"Oh."_  
  
_"Yes,"_ Logan said with a satisfied smirk. _"Oh."_  
  
_"Anyone care to explain? I'd really like to know whether I need to hex this guy to kingdom come or back off,"_ Renilda remarked.  
  
_"It was a trick question,"_ Logan announced. _"One that Roman could have easily answered were he actually present for the meal in question."_  
  
"That was the meal we cooked for them," Virgil realized.  
  
_"Why act as though you do not know the answer to a question with such a readily available answer that we would have quickly recognized as the truth, when you know that telling the truth may mean the different between walking free and a far less desirable fate?"_ Logan asked.  
  
"Because he doesn't know the answer. Because he wasn't there," Virgil deduced.  
  
_"But if he wasn't there, who was?"_ Renilda wondered.  
  
_"Remember how I said it was a very long story?"_ Roman responded with a wry smile.


	28. Chapter 28

Virgil had a hard time following Roman's story, he had to admit. Some parts of it were so _outrageous_.  
  
"You have an evil twin." The fact that Virgil's text to speech rendered this statement so matter of fact only added to the surrealism of the whole situation.  
  
_"Seems that way,"_ Roman replied.  
  
_"That would explain the lack of enchantments,"_ Logan reasoned. _"He did not need to utilize them to alter his appearance to match yours."_  
  
Roman frowned. _"He has a moustache, though."_  
  
Dee started to snicker at that. _"I'm sorry, I just...I pictured..."_ He trailed off as he was besieged anew by laughter, this time nearly inconsolable.  
  
_"You pictured Roman with a moustache, didn't you?"_ Renilda asked, a small smile on her face.  
  
_"Wouldn't he have needed an enchantment to hide the moustache?"_ Roman pointed out as Dee worked on regaining his composure. _"He did when he revealed himself to me."_  
  
_"That was on short notice, though,"_ Logan noted. _"I presume, with his intent being to pose as you, he opted to shave the moustache."_  
  
_"Good,"_ Roman said in a gruff tone. _"He looked better without it. I dare say almost as attractive as myself."_  
  
_"...you have the same face, though,"_ Logan frowned. Virgil let out a snort.  
  
_"I'm pleased to see you all safe, I must admit. When Remus returned to the Duke homestead, he proclaimed that he sent you somewhere that you might never return from alive."_  
  
_"I see that he possesses a certai flair for dramatics,"_ Logan commented dryly.  
  
"Must run in the family," Virgil chimed in with a smirk.  
  
_"Hey!"_ Roman protested.  
  
Logan ignored them and continued on. _"I suppose, theoretically speaking, it is possible to never escape from the state that your brother placed us within. Era and Shane are still within said state, to my knowledge. Which reminds me - Ms. Nyx, would you be willing to send an owl to Chelsea, Elliott, Astrit, and Paige?"_  
  
Renilda nodded and set off to the kitchen, presumably to fetch her owl.  
  
Logan cleared his throat. _"We were placed into an enchanted sleep, with our conscious minds trapped within a dreamlike state. I do not believe that we would have perished, as all evidence shows that the bodies of those within such a state do not require sustenance, but had we not met the conditions to escape we may have remained trapped there indefinitely."_  
  
_"And you say Era and Shane are still in this state?"_ Roman asked.

Logan nodded.  
  
_"Merlin...and what about Patton?"_ Roman's eyes searched their faces, as if he could discern what they might say before they even said anything.  
  
_"He...he broke up with you, and departed shortly after,"_ Logan admitted.  
  
Roman closed his eyes, presumably to steel himself. _"Remus mentioned that. I assume you haven't found him yet?"_  
  
_"We have not,"_ Logan confirmed.  
  
Roman let out a tremulous sigh. _"What if he's hurt, or...or worse? This wasn't the way it was supposed to go. Patton and I were supposed to celebrate the best day of our lives together, and now I don't...I don't even know if he's safe or not! And it's all because of_ them! _Why won't they just leave us be?!"_ He punched a pillow, then buried his hands in his face as he began to sob.  
  
An all too familiar scene. Virgil felt a sense of deja vu watching it, though he now knew that he watched _Remus_ go through the motions the first time.  
  
This was Roman reacting to _everything_, and now that Virgil _knew_ the extent of Remus' actions...Virgil felt his own hands clench into fists at the sight.  
  
_"If I may...I think we ought to share with you our theories concerning Patton's disappearance,"_ Logan announced.  
  
Roman looked up at that, sniffing _"P...Please?"_ He wiped away a few of his tears.  
  
_"We believe that Patton disappeared of his own volition,"_ Logan began.  
  
Roman looked as if Logan hit him in the face with a Beater's Bat. _"Why would he...?"_  
  
"Because he loves you," Virgil spoke up. Logan glanced over at Virgil in surprise, though nodded in agreement.  
  
_"That doesn't make any sense!"_ Roman shook his head.  
  
_"Doesn't it? You know what your brother dearest is capable of, do you not?"_ Dee questioned.  
  
_"...he got in Patton's head, just as he got into yours and mine and everyone else's!"_ Roman roared. _"Well he won't get away with it any longer! I'm going to find Patton and I'm going to set things right!"_  
  
_"That's all fine and dandy, as we know_ exactly _where Patton is located, don't we?"_ Dee noted with a roll of his eyes.  
  
_"We have narrowed it down to scarcely populated locations,"_ Logan told Roman.  
  
_"...great, we've narrowed it down to half of the United Kingdom as opposed to the entirety! We're doing fabulous!"_ Dee retorted.  
  
_"They'd have to be scarcely populated locations that Patton would think of, wouldn't they?"_ Renilda added her input as she re-entered the room.

Logan's eyes went wide, and he turned back to Roman at once. _"Roman, you know Patton best. Do you know where he might have gone?"_  
  
_"Wouldn't he want to go somewhere that none of us know about if he's trying to avoid us?"_ Dee pointed out.  
  
_"Yes, but he wouldn't be able to just Apparate to the middle of nowhere,"_ Renilda acknowledged. _"He would have to have a start off point that he is at least somewhat familiar with. And a start off point is better than nothing if you're trying to retrace his steps."_  
  
_"I suppose I know a place that would fit the bill, then,"_ Roman grinned triumphantly, then began to turn where he stood, presumably to Apparate.  
  
_"WAIT!"_ Logan blurted out.  
  
Roman nearly fell over. _"The hell was that for?! My fiance need saving!"_  
  
"Yeah, but you didn't tell _us_ where we were going," Virgil reminded him.  
  
_"Oh...right. I suppose that would probably help,"_ Roman chuckled sheepishly. _"It's this area that he used to go fishing with his grandfather in the countryside...he only mentioned it once, but it seems like just the sort of secluded place that Patton might turn to if he had nowhere else to go..."_


	29. Chapter 29

As Virgil held Logan's hand to prepare for Side Along Aparition, he could not help but be reminded of his time in the Void.  
  
He would ordinarily close his eyes to prepare for Side Along Apparition, but every time he closed his eyes and felt Logan's hand in his he was reminded of the choice that he had to make in the Void, and his eyes would inevitably snap back open as fear besieged him. _What if it happens again, for real this time? What if Logan and I get caught in limbo and we don't make it to our destination and..._  
  
Whether Logan could read the panic on Virgil's expression or merely wished to comfort his seemingly always nervous boyfriend, the fact that Logan gave his hand a squeeze just as his thoughts were beginning to spiral helped to ground him.  
  
He was forced to close his eyes when they actually Apparated, as the world shifted and colors began to run together. It was too fast, too dizzying, too _overwhelming_.  
  
Then it all ground to a halt.  
  
Virgil still felt Logan's hand in his, which was a good sign, but he was also utterly _terrified_ to open his eyes. What if he discovered that _none_ of what happened was real and he'd been floating in the Void this entire time?!  
  
_"Virgil? Are you alright? You haven't splinched, have you?"_ he heard Logan ask.  
  
Virgil's eyes flew open at that, and he let out a breathy laugh when the first thing he saw was _Logan_ standing beside him.  
  
Logan let out a sigh of relief, a hint of a smile making it's way onto his face. _"You had me concerned for a moment. Your entire body was tense and your facial expression suggested that you might be in pain."_  
  
Because he'd _panicked_, but Logan didn't need to know that. Virgil merely gestured to himself, inviting Logan to see for himself that he was _perfectly fine_!  
  
(In that he had no _physical_ injuries, at least.)  
  
_"What next?"_ Dee inquired, brushing a bit of dirt off of his clothes.  
  
_"We look for Patton, duh,"_ Roman replied.  
  
_"Yes, but where shall we begin the endeavor?"_ Logan wondered.

_"...I didn't get that far,"_ Roman frowned.  
  
_"Of course you didn't,"_ Logan said with an exasperated sigh, squeezing the bridge of his nose.  
  
"Near a body of water?" Virgil proposed.  
  
The other three glanced to him in surprise.  
  
Virgil shrugged then typed out a quick response. "You said Patton used to go fishing here, right?"  
  
_"....that's true, if he was drawn to anything in particular in this area, it would be that. We just need to_ find _said body of water, which is easier said than done."_ This time it was Roman who sounded as though he was at wit's end. _"I can't believe Remus stooped so low as to torment Patton. I knew he wished ill-will toward me owing to my position within our family, but to go after Patton..."_ Roman ground his teeth together, looking positively _livid_. _"Remus Duke is vile."_  
  
_"Duke...earlier, you mentioned the Duke homestead?"_ Dee spoke up suddenly. The other three turned to him in surprise. _"I believe...why did I not recognize it sooner?!"_ Dee scolded himself.  
  
_"What is it, Dee?"_ Logan frowned, eyeing Dee closely.  
  
_"I may have visited the Duke homestead myself at one point?"_ Dee replied.

\------------------------  
  
_Lionel Thompson was frustrated and bored.  
  
He thought that accompanying his father to one of his meetings would be_ fun_, that his father now considered him old enough to_ really _get involved with the cause. He was eleven years old, after all, and would be starting Hogwarts in the fall! He was old enough to do more than just_ tag along!  
  
_Sure, the other option was leaving him home alone, as mother had to take_ Virgil _to an appointment at St. Mungo's. Lionel didn't actually hate his little brother, but he could be really annoying sometimes.  
  
Father seemed far more interested in Virgil than in Lionel for some time, something that immensely bothered Lionel. Just because he fell into these trances where he got all weird and predicted the future...it wasn't even something that he could control! So of course Lionel teased Virgil about it. Virgil needed to be reminded that they each had their place, and that there was nothing special about Virgil other than that creepy ability of his.   
  
A creepy ability that had yet to resurface, much to Lionel's relief. Father grew tired of waiting, and refocused his attention on Lionel once more. Thank Merlin.  
  
...but he still didn't trust Lionel to sit in on a meeting!  
  
His father and the Dukes, as his father called them, were just on the other side of the door. So close and yet so far. He wondered if he'd be able to hear them if he leaned in close enough._  
  
_ ...that was an idea._  
  
_ If he could hear them talking from where he was sitting, might it be easier to hear them at the door? Lionel jumped out of his seat and ran to the door. He pressed his ear to the door with a triumphant grin, ready to listen in..._  
  
_ ...only to find that he couldn't hear anything, even with his ear right up to the door. Lionel let out a sigh of exasperation. He was so close! Why couldn't he listen in?!_

_"What are you doing?" a voice asked. They sounded amused. Lionel jumped, though quickly regained his composure once he realized that the voice sounded young. _  
  
_ He turned and saw a boy around his age...or perhaps Virgil's age, as he did look a little bit younger than Lionel. _  
  
_ "What does it look like I'm doing? I'm trying to listen in to what they're saying," Lionel whispered._  
  
_ "Why are we whispering?" the boy whispered back. "Why not just talk normally?!" the boy's voice boomed, and Lionel winced._  
  
_ "That's not talking normally, that's yelling!" Lionel hissed back._  
  
_ The boy shrugged. "Sometimes you have to yell to be heard!" Ugh, he was still yelling, why was he still yelling?!_  
  
_ "I'm trying not to be heard!" Lionel snapped._  
  
_ "Why?" the boy tilted his head slightly. _  
  
_ "Why? Because I don't want them to come out and yell at us for listening in!" Lionel insisted. He was still whispering, though he wasn't sure why he even bothered at this point - The other boy continued to talk loud enough for both of them. _  
  
_ "They're not gonna do that, silly," the boy snickered._  
  
_ "Why not?" Lionel huffed, annoyed that the other boy seemed to know something that he didn't._  
  
_ "Because they have a silencing spell on the door, duh!" the boy rolled his eyes. _  
  
_ ...oh._


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for vague hints at child neglect (...probably more than vague, really X_X)

"You met Remus before this and you didn't think to tell us?" Virgil stared at his brother, aghast.  
  
Dee scoffed. _"You say that like I knew who Remus was prior to this point."_  
  
Virgil folded his arms across his chest and let out a sigh. He wouldn't actually come out and say it, but Dee had a point. None of them even knew that Remus was a person who _existed_ until Roman explained what happened to him.  
  
Yet there was no doubt in Virgil's mind that this boy his brother encountered at age eleven was indeed a younger Remus.  
  
_"Can I continue my story now, or will there be any other unexpected interruptions? Speak now or forever hold your peace!"_ Dee called out.  
  
Virgil rolled his eyes. "Just continue the story."  
  
Dee cleared his throat and did just that.  
  
\-------------------  
  
_"Well that sucks," Lionel sighed. If they cast a silencing charm on the door, he was never going to overhear anything! Why was he even here?_  
  
_"Sure does. What are you gonna do about it?" the other boy asked._  
  
_ "Do about it?" Lionel regarded the boy in confusion. "There's not much I can do about it, is there? Not like I can undo their spell. I haven't even gone shopping for my wand yet."_  
  
_ "So you're just gonna give up then? That's boring. I thought you were gonna be fun," the other boy pouted._  
  
_ Lionel huffed. "I can be fun!"_  
  
_ "Prove it, then!" the other boy dared him._  
  
_ "Fine, I will!" Lionel retorted._  
  
_ There was a moment of silence before the other boy spoke once more. "Well...?"_  
  
_ "Shut up, I'm trying to think of a way to get in there," Lionel snapped._  
  
_ The other boy grinned. "You want any help? I'm sure I could think of all sorts of ways to get into that meeting," he told Lionel eagerly._  
  
_ Lionel considered the other boy for a moment. It wouldn't hurt to have a second person trying to figure things out. "Sure. What's your name?" If he was going to be working with this other kid, it wouldn't hurt to at least have his name._  
  
_ "If I tell you, I'll have to kill you," the boy said with an uncharacteristically serious expression. Lionel's eyes widened in alarm._  
  
_ "Just kidding!" he broke out into a grin, and Lionel let out a sigh of relief. "I know! You can call me Dukey!"_  
  
_ Lionel let out a snort. "You sure you want me to call you that? You know what Dukey means?"_  
  
_ "Yup!" the boy - er, Dukey - responded enthusiastically. "Gross, isn't it?" Only 'Dukey' didn't seem to regard 'gross' as something bad in this instance._  
  
_ ...whatever suited him._  
  
_ "What's your name?" Dukey asked._  
  
_ "Lionel," Lionel told him, and Dukey started to laugh._  
  
_ "Lionel?" he chortled._  
  
_ "What? What's wrong with my name?" Lionel frowned._  
  
_ "Nothing, if you like super boring names," Dukey shrugged._  
  
_ "My name's not...you didn't even tell me your real name! I bet it's just as boring!" Lionel snapped back._  
  
_ "Duh, that's why I didn't give you my real name!" Dukey giggled in response._  
  
_ That was how Dukey wanted to be? Fine! Two could play at that game. But he needed a name. He didn't really have any nicknames, other than Li, which was short for his full name. Somehow he didn't think Dukey would find Li to be much better than Lionel, though._  
  
_ Li...Li sounded exactly like 'lie'. What were other words for lying? Fib? No, that was stupid. False was just as bad._  
  
_ Then it hit him. It was a nickname that packed a much bigger punch than any of the other names he thought of. He was willing to try this one on for size. "Well, you can call me Deceit."_  
  
_ Dukey blinked in surprise, studying Lionel. Then he broke out into a huge grin and clapped his hands together. "Deceit! I love it!"_  
  
_ Lionel - no, Deceit - was proud of himself. He might have to use that nickname more often!_

_"So why are you here?" Deceit wondered. "Are your parents meeting with the Dukes too?"_  
  
_ Dukey started to laugh again. Deceit was starting to find it more than a little annoying that Dukey constantly seemed to be in on some sort of joke that Deceit wasn't._  
  
_ "No, my parents are the Dukes! Sorta. I was too much for my actual parents so they sent me to live here!" he announced._  
  
_ "I can hardly imagine why your actual parents thought that," Deceit commented with a snort._  
  
_ "I dunno either, but I don't really remember them so who cares?" Dukey shrugged. He either didn't notice Deceit's sarcasm or didn't care._  
  
_ "What about you?" Dukey asked, poking Deceit in his chest. Deceit tensed, not exactly a fan of the fact that Dukey seemed to have next to no concept of personal space._  
  
_ "I'm here with my father," Deceit responded._  
  
_ "Your dad? Why not your mum? Did she die?" Dukey wondered._  
  
_ Deceit gaped at Dukey, unbelieving. This kid actually had the gall_ _to ask if his mother died? "Nope, she's with my brother," Deceit explained._  
  
_"Oooh, you have a brother? I have three. Two of them are older and one of them was my age. He and my older brothers are back with our real parents, though, since he's the good twin and I'm the bad twin," Dukey shrugged._  
  
_ "How do you like it here?" Deceit asked him._  
  
_ "It's awesome! The Dukes let me do pretty much anything I want. I can stay up as late as I want to, eat whatever I want to...they don't even make me take a bath if I don't want to!"_  
  
_ ...well that would certainly explain why Dukey smelled at least._  
  
_ On the one hand, Dukey's life sounded like a dream come true! Being able to do whatever you wanted? Who wouldn't want that?!_  
  
_ But Deceit felt uncomfortable, and he couldn't explain why he felt that way._  
  
_ So he changed the subject. "So how are we gonna get through that door?" Deceit asked._  
  
_ "Oooh, I'm so glad you asked!" Dukey beamed. "I already have some ideas!"_


	31. Chapter 31

Of all the ways Virgil expected the story to go, he didn't expect it to go _that_ way.  
  
"He literally called himself the bad twin?" Virgil wasn't sure what to make of the conflicting emotions that were arising within him. He knew all too well what it felt like to consider yourself 'the bad one' or 'the defective' one, and the fact that Remus said it so matter-of-factly at the age of _ten_ was more than a little alarming.  
  
"Well, he wasn't _wrong_," Roman scoffed, though he had his hands folded across his chest and he looked distinctly uncomfortable as they continued to walk to...well, Virgil was fairly certain that none of them knew _where_ they were going at this point. They were just trying to find the nearest body of water.  
  
Virgil didn't blame Roman for that reaction, no matter how harsh it may seem. Remus was certainly living up to the title of 'bad twin' at this point, not only disrupting his brother's life and impersonating his brother, but causing those _around_ Roman to suffer. Given that Patton was still missing, Roman had no obligation to be kind in any fashion to the man who manipulated the circumstances so that they would pan out this way in the first place.  
  
...but did Remus deserve the title at the age of _ten_?  
  
There was one other matter that caught Virgjl's attention. "That's how you came up with the name Deceit? I thought you came up with it at Hogwarts."  
  
Dee shrugged. _"Did I actually tell you that, or was that the assumption that you reached when you heard my friends calling me by a name you'd never heard before?"_  
  
The latter. It was the latter, and _this_ origin story for Dee's nickname actually made more sense than the last, as Dee gave Virgil the nickname 'Anxiety' before Dee ever stepped foot in Hogwarts. Why give Virgil a nickname like that if he hadn't already given himself one?  
  
_"Let's keep going,"_ Logan remarked, pulling Virgil from his thoughts. Virgil glanced up as Logan spoke to Dee. _"You may continue with your recount of your past with Remus, however. I admit I am curious as to what will happen next."_  
  
\------------------------

_"...what?" Deceit frowned, sure that he must have misheard._  
  
_ "I said we could blow up the door! They won't be able to block us out then" Dukey grinned triumphantly._  
  
_ "How...how would we blow up the door, exactly?" Deceit gaped. "We don't even have wands."_  
  
_ Dukey giggled. "You don't necessarily need magic to blow things up! You can just toss random things together to see what they do!"_  
  
_ "You mean like making a Potion?" Deceit asked, trying to get clarification._  
  
_ "I mean maybe?" Dukey shrugged. "I know there's some Potions that do that. But you can do that with random stuff around the house too! Have you ever tried mixing cleaning stuff in the bathroom? That can make some pretty funny results!"_  
  
_ "...wait...you mean you're throwing actual random things together to see how they'll...that's super dangerous!" Deceit's eyes went wide._  
  
_ Dukey shrugged again. "Yeah, and? That's part of the fun! Seeing how people react when the whole thing blows up! Sometimes it'll do funny things to you too. One time I mixed a couple of things together and started feeling really funny and seeing things that weren't there!"_  
  
_ "...that's why it's dangerous. That could have killed you," Deceit informed him._  
  
_ "Maybe, but I'm still here so it didn't! And whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger!" Dukey beamed. "Which must mean I'm super strong now!"_  
  
_ "Yeah, that's exactly how that works," Deceit said with a roll of his eyes._  
  
_ "Oh, I know! If you don't wanna blow up the door, I have something else we could try!" Dukey announced._  
  
_ Deceit let out a sigh of relief, though this relief was quickly replaced by concern when Dukey went running out of the room._  
  
_ What, exactly, did Dukey have in mind?_

_Dukey returned carrying two items with him - A bat and a trunk._  
  
_ Deceit furrowed his brow in confusion. "What's that?"_

_"You'll see!" Dukey grinned, then proceeded to open the door to the trunk._  
  
_ A large black ball came flying out of the trunk, directly toward Deceit. He managed to dodge it in the nick of time. He heard a crash behind him as the ball flew directly into a vase located on a shelf, shattering it before darting to a new place in the room, seemingly at random._  
  
_ "You...why would you release a bludger indoors?" Deceit shouted. He ducked as the bludger came toward him once more, covering his head with his hands._  
  
_ Dukey clutched the bat in his hands. Deceit now recognized it to be a beater's bat._  
  
_ Deceit stared agape as the bludger continued to dart around the room, denting walls and knocking things over in a cacophony of noise. Dukey's earlier assessment about the door being enchanted with a silencing spell appeared to be true; no matter how much noise all of this generated, their parents seemed none the wiser._  
  
_ But they wouldn't stay in that room forever, and how would they react when they stepped out and saw all of this? Deceit grew nervous. This wasn't what he wanted! He just wanted to listen in on a meeting that he thought he ought to be a part of!_  
  
_ "Stand back!" Dukey called out in a sing-song voice._  
  
_ "What?" Deceit turned to the other boy just in time to see the bludger dart toward Dukey. Dukey lifted the beater bat and hit the bludger toward the door. This time, with the added momentum from Dukey's bat, it didn't bounce off the door._  
  
_ It went through the door._  
  
_ It didn't take long for Deceit to hear the sound of chairs scraping against the floor in the opposite room, followed by the unmistakable yelling of his father and the Dukes. Soon, they came bursting into the living room. Father looked absolutely furious, as did the Dukes._  
  
_ Deceit gulped, chancing a glance over at Dukey to see how he was faring._  
  
_ He was shocked to see that Dukey didn't look in the least bit afraid of his parents' wrath. Instead, he was grinning._  
  
_ And Deceit didn't know what to make of that. It horrified him and unsettled him, to be certain._  
  
_ ...but a part of him was also a tad jealous?_  
  
_ He didn't have much time to dwell on any of this, though, as father pulled him by the hand and pulled him to the door._  
  
_ The meeting was over, and Deceit didn't even get a chance to listen in._


	32. Chapter 32

Virgil wasn't sure what to make of what Dee told them. It was clear that this sort of destructive behavior on Remus' part wasn't _new_, but it certainly seemed to have evolved over the years.  
  
In fact, other than the ferris wheel, almost all of the destruction that Remus wrought in the present day was of the emotional or mental sort.  
  
_"Well I for one am glad that I did not have to grow up alongside him,"_ Roman noted. _"I already had enough to deal with when it came to James and Phillip,"_ he rolled his eyes. _"And Remus seems worse than both of them combined!"_  
  
_"The fact that Remus referred to himself as the bad twin troubles me, though,"_ Logan admitted.  
  
_"Why? That's exactly what he is,"_ Roman huffed. _"Just look at everything he's done recently! Does any of that sound like something a good twin would do?"_  
  
_"No, it does not,"_ Logan conceded. _"But there is a considerable difference between a 19 year old man willfully and maliciously attacking us and a 10 year old boy releasing a bludger in the house. One is the sort of activity one might expect from a particularly rambunctious child."_  
  
"I'd never release a bludger in the house," Virgil countered, looking appalled at the very thought.  
  
_"Rambunctious child, not one afraid of his own shadow,"_ Dee noted with a smirk.  
  
Virgil rolled his eyes.  
  
Dee _did_ have a point, though. Neither he nor Dee were particularly rambunctious children, so of course _they_ wouldn't do something like that. Remus, though...  
  
_"As a matter of fact, I could easily picture a younger Roman partaking in such an activity,"_ Logan added.  
  
Virgil, too, found that surprisingly easy to picture, and the corners of his mouth twitched upward.

Roman did not look amused. _"I did no such thing."_  
  
_"Suuuure you didn't,"_ Dee teased.  
  
_"I did not mean to imply that you actually did, merely that I could easily picture you doing so,"_ Logan clarified.  
  
_"But I wouldn't! I am_ nothing _like that fiend!"_ Roman insisted. _"Need I remind you that_ I _am the good twin?"_  
  
_"I am not condoning any of Remus' recent behavior, nor am I attempting to suggest that you are capable of the despicable actions that Remus has undertaken against us,"_ Logan replied.  
  
_"Then what are you suggesting, because it sure sounds like you're defending him!"_ Roman fired back.  
  
_"You are predisposed to hate everything about Remus, no matter how large or small. This is understandable, of course, and by no means am I suggesting that you are in the wrong to feel the way that you do. That being said, I would like you to look at the situation objectively. Imagine, if you will, a ten year old. You do not know him. You do not know what he will grow up to be. You know nothing about this boy, yet he speaks of how his parents sent him to live with another family and refers to himself as the bad twin and his twin as the good twin. How does that make you feel? Doesn't that unsettle you just a tad?"_  
  
_"Unsettle? No, it doesn't unsettle me,"_ Roman responded. _"It disgusts me. It disturbs me. It_ scares _me, Logan!"_ Roman snapped.

_"Scares you?"_ Logan repeated. It was clear that he didn't expect that response.  
  
_"I...I don't see much difference between myself and Remus at that age, and yes, that frightens me. You're right - I would have released a bludger in the house at that age. I would have found it funny. I know it's dangerous, but I also know that I wouldn't have thought about how dangerous something was before doing it at the age of ten. Hell, I don't think before doing things_ now _half the time,"_ Roman admitted with a nervous chuckle.  
  
"You're worried that you could have been the bad twin," Virgil realized.  
  
Roman let out a shaky sigh. _"Yes and no."_  
  
_"Yes and no?"_ Dee arched an eyebrow.  
  
_"Yes, that bothers me, but that's not the only thing that does. By saying that I could have been the bad twin were I sent to live with the Dukes instead...I...would I have done the same things as Remus has done?"_ Roman's voice was quiet, much quieter than Virgil was used to hearing from the boisterous former Gryffindor.

_"I do not feel that is a fair question to ask-"_ Logan began, but Roman cut him off.  
  
_"How is it not? We already established that we were not all that different at ten. What's to say that, raised under the circumstances he was, I wouldn't have turned out the same as he did at nineteen?"_ he argued.  
  
_"You may have,"_ Logan acknowledged. Roman wore an expression akin to Logan having slapped him across the face. Virgil stared at Logan, wondering what in the fresh _hell_ his boyfriend was thinking.  
  
_"You also may not have,"_ Logan continued. _"That is why I do not feel that it is a fair question to ask. It is impossible to accurately answer said question with what limited information we have. There is also another factor that you have neglected to consider,"_ Logan noted.  
  
_"What's that?"_ Roman wondered.  
  
_"Choice. Even if your life panned out exactly the same as Remus', there is no guarantee that you would make the same choices that he has,"_ Logan revealed.  
  
_"But if I had the same upbringing as he did-"_ Roman began, but this time it was Logan's turn to cut _Roman_ off.  
  
_"Again, you may have made the same choices, but you very well may not have. One's upbringing can play a role in one's choices in life, but it is certainly not the only factor to consider. You may be twins, but you are different people. There is no guarantee that even with the best upbringing Remus would have turned out to be a fine, upstanding individual,"_ Logan asserted.  
  
_"I just...ugh, I hate this! I hate Victoria and Edward! I hate that I actually feel bad for Remus after all that he's done! I hate that I can picture myself in his shoes! "_ Roman lamented.  
  
_"As well you should, but do keep one thing in mind. I mentioned choice for a reason. It is alright to feel for Remus, to recognize that there was something fundamentally wrong that occurred within his childhood. It is also alright to acknowledge the choices that Remus has made in the present, and the suffering that such choices have led to. You are not wrong for feeling sympathy toward what happened to your brother in the past, nor are you in the wrong for acknowledging the enmity you feel for him now. The two are not mutually exclusive,"_ Logan assured him.  
  
_"...thanks Lo,"_ Roman said after a moment, offering Logan a small smile.


	33. Chapter 33

For the amount of conversing that occurred during the _first_ part of their search, the silence that followed was striking.  
  
It was not entirely unexpected, however, given the subject of their conversation.  
  
The majority of the conversation might have been between Logan and Roman, but they were not the only ones left with something to think about.  
  
Virgil knew that he and Dee would be _stupid_ not to recognize that Logan's words could apply to himself and Dee as well.  
  
They were a lot further along on their journey that Roman and Remus were, of course. There was also the matter of Dee actually _acknowledging_ the error of his ways and not only learning how to improve himself, but actually _acting_ upon what he learned.  
  
Could Remus be capable of such change? He could be, and it was Virgil's first time considering this (though, to be fair to Virgil, he didn't know that Remus even _existed_ until a few hours prior). The choice ultimately fell to Remus, and there was no guarantee that Remus would actually _want_ to turn over a new leaf. Remus and Dee had their similarities, but they had their differences as well - just like _Roman_ and Remus.  
  
It was probably for the best that they did not allow further conversation to sidetrack them any further. Not only had they not found Patton, they had yet to stumble upon any signs or clues that he might have been in the area at some point, even if he wasn't now.  
  
Despite this, they were a lot closer than they thought, even if it was only by virtue of a lucky coincidence.  
  
\--------------------------  
  
Patton was doing his best, but sometimes his best did not feel like enough.  
  
He'd survived thus far, with as minimal contact with humans and other creatures as he could muster. He still needed to eat, of course, and did so in a variety of ways. He picked berries off of trees, grateful that he'd packed a book telling him which trees contained berries that were actually edible. He would sometimes raid nearby farms and steal eggs or crops.  
  
He had the hang of this. He could do this. He could live out the rest of his existence this way, and no one would end up hurt.  
  
But there was an ache deep within him. At first he thought he was merely hungry, and decided to scale up his food intake.  
  
It wasn't food. No matter how much or how little he ate, the ache persisted.

It didn't take him long to realize what it was - He missed his friends. He missed his family. He missed _Roman_.  
  
Yet every time he so much as considered going back to them, the horrific thoughts would return as a forceful reminder of why he absolutely _had_ to stay away from those he cared about most.  
  
He wished he could apologize to Roman, to reassure Roman that this had nothing to do with him. He knew that he was hurting his fiance and his friends by doing this, but he would much rather put them through _this_ than run the risk that he might seriously hurt them - or worse.  
  
A shudder went through him at the thought, and he had to close his eyes for a moment in an attempt to fight back the tears that were threatening to well up.  
  
And to think, he and Roman would have been married in a short time. Imagine if this had happened after they were married. _Roman really dodged a bullet there, didn't he?_ Patton thought to himself, dabbing at his eyes as a few tears escaped despite his best efforts.  
  
There _was_ one place that he could go that he knew would be safe - The old fishing hole his grandfather used to take him to when he was little.  
  
Funny thing, that. Patton never really did like fishing all that much. His grandfather quickly realized how reluctant Patton was to play with worms and other 'icky' creatures, and thus took pity on the boy and bought fake lures for him.  
  
The fish _themselves_ were kinda gross too, though, and Patton preferred _not_ to think about the origin of the fish sticks that his mother would place on he and his siblings' plates.  
  
Patton thought back on all of this with a small smile, closing his eyes as he basked in the happy memories of the time he spent with his grandfather. If he couldn't trust himself with _actual_ human connection, he could at least trust himself with nostalgia. He couldn't hurt someone who'd already passed over a decade before.  
  
Patton sat against a tree, peering out into the water. He felt more relaxed than he had in a good while, to the point where he started to feel himself drift off, and made no effort to stop himself. He could afford to stay here a bit longer. It wasn't like he had anywhere else to go in a hurry.

\------------------------  
  
Virgil felt as if they'd been walking for ages, and the sun was starting to dip toward the horizon. They still had a bit of daylight left, but not much - and it wouldn't do them much good to search at night when they could easily miss something in the dark.  
  
_I'm starting to think this wasn't the best idea,_ Virgil thought to himself. They should have done a bit more research before jumping into the first idea that Roman had, though he could certainly understand Roman's haste.  
  
The more time Patton was missing, the greater the chance something bad might happen to Patton, if it hadn't already.  
  
Then they happened upon a stream. The view was _beautiful_, but Virgil knew that they did not have time to waste to enjoy it.  
  
They split up into groups. Virgil and Roman were in one group and Dee and Logan were in the other as each group went in the opposite direction of the other, searching along the banks of the stream.  
  
Virgil was about to call it a night and suggest that they meet back with Logan and Dee where they started, but Roman let out a strange sound somewhere between a gasp and a yelp and Virgil turned to him in surprise.  
  
_"Against the tree there! It's a body!"_ Roman told Virgil in a hushed voice, pointing at the tree in question.  
  
_Merlin_, Virgil _really_ wanted to go home now...  
  
Instead of leaving things be, though, Roman _had_ to be curious and _had_ to creep closer, and Virgil _had_ to stick close to him because he wasn't about to let Roman get himself killed over something stupid-  
  
_"Lumos!"_ Roman incanted, the end of his wand lighting up the area enough so that Virgil and Roman could see the body beneath the tree in greater detail.  
  
Virgil immediately had to swallow back a gag at what he saw. He felt sick.  
  
It was _Patton_.


	34. Chapter 34

Virgil didn't know what to do, and Roman was just as panicked as _he_ was, if not more.  
  
Roman choked back a sob. _"He's...he's..."_ He buried his face in his hands, quaking from the force of his tears.  
  
Virgil wasn't crying, and he wasn't sure _why_. He felt as though he _ought_ to be crying. He certainly wasn't happy by any stretch of the imagination. But rather than the crushing sadness that he expected to feel, he just felt...numb.  
  
What was _wrong_ with him?  
  
Well, he wasn't _completely_ numb. He still felt as if he were about to be sick.  
  
_We're too late,_ Virgil realized. Only _just_ too late, too, from the looks of it. If Virgil looked close enough he would almost swear that Patton was breathing.  
  
...wait...  
  
Virgil immediately leaned over, shaking Roman in an attempt to get his attention. Roman looked up at him in surprise, tears still staining his cheeks.  
  
"He's breathing," Virgil informed him.  
  
Roman looked back at him with a puzzled expression, almost as if he couldn't understand...  
  
...oh, right, he _couldn't_ understand Virgil. Virgil was surprised to find himself chuckling at this realization. It was as if there was previously a dam holding back his emotions and the dam burst, only the emotions he was _expecting_ to burst through weren't quite the ones that he was expecting.  
  
Roman looked as if he'd been slapped across the face. _"Why are you laughing?"_  
  
Virgil managed to regain his composure for long enough to type into his phone what he'd attempted to say verbally, then press play so that he could share the _wonderful_ news with Roman. "He's breathing!"

Roman's eyes went wide and his gaze turned back to Patton. Virgil could tell that Roman was checking for himself, that he thought Virgil's words were too good to be true.  
  
Judging from the loud whoop that Roman let out, followed by joyous laughter? Roman's observations matched Virgil's.  
  
They weren't completely out of the woods, though. Despite the ruckus that Roman was making, Patton wasn't stirring. And it didn't take long for _Roman_ to recognize that something was wrong with this picture as well.  
  
Was he in an enchanted sleep as well?  
  
Roman crept close to Patton, then proceeded to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. _"Patton, wake up!"_ he shouted.  
  
Much to their surprise, Patton's eyes flew open blearily. Virgil nearly dropped his phone in surprise, though Roman let out a scream as he lurched backward away from Patton in shock.  
  
...hopefully Dee and Logan heard and would come running? It would save Roman and Virgil a trip.  
  
Patton might have opened his eyes slowly to begin with, but he certainly looked wide awake right now. And he didn't exactly look happy to see Virgil and Roman.  
  
_"What...how...what are you doing here?"_ Patton stammered after he sprang to his feet. He looked ready to bolt at any moment.  
  
_"We were looking for you, my love!"_ Roman informed him.  
  
Patton shook his head. _"No. No! You weren't supposed to..."_  
  
_"I couldn't just stand by and let you leave. A life without you would be incomplete,"_ Roman assured him warmly.  
  
_"But it would be a life. I can't...you need to go, Roman, it's dangerous. I'm dangerous!"_ Tears were flowing freely down Patton's face at this point.  
  
Roman stepped forward as Patton backed away. _"Patton, darling, you are the furthest thing from dangerous. You are one of the sweetest and kindest men that I have ever met."_  
  
Patton let out a shaky laugh. _"Thank you, Roman, but you were wrong about me. I'm not...what you fell in love with was a lie. A lie that I actually fell for myself at first, silly me."_ Patton sniffed.

_"A lie?"_ Roman shook his head. _"It's not a lie, though!"_  
  
_"I'm sorry, Roman. If it makes you feel any better, I wanted us to live happily ever after too! But this isn't a story book and it's not going to end that way. It's for the best this way,"_ Patton told Roman with a sad smile.  
  
_"I understand, Patton,"_ Roman replied. His expression turned stony.  
  
_"You do?"_ Patton blinked in surprise.  
  
Roman nodded. _"I do. I understand why you feel the way that you do."_ Roman's countenance shifted from stony to _determined_. _"And I will not rest until you realize just how wrong you are."_  
  
\------------------------

Chelsea was tired of waiting.  
  
At least Chelsea wasn't the only one waiting, though. How unbearable would that be?  
  
Chelsea, Elliott, Paige, and Astrit received an owl from Renilda notifying them that Virgil, Logan, and Dee made it safely to her flat and were in the process of setting out to look for Patton. The letter also mentioned that they had more news, but that it would be easier to explain everything in person.  
  
Chelsea wondered what _that_ meant, but their natural penchant for curiosity was tempered in light of the fact that Era and Shane still had yet to wake up.  
  
Chelsea waited until she was alone in the room with Era and Shane before finally dissolving into tears. It wasn't a matter of embarrassment to be seen crying, it was a matter of trying to remain strong for the others. But when no one else was looking? It was easier for one's _true_ feelings to slip out.  
  
Chelsea held a hand over her mouth, trying not to sob too loudly and attract attention from anyone else outside of the room. The last thing they wanted was for someone walk in on them like this.  
  
Chelsea winced at the sound of movement. Her cover was blown.  
  
_"Why are you crying, i dashur?"_ a voice said, barely above a whisper in volume.  
  
Chelsea's eyes went wide as she slowly turned her head toward where Era lay.  
  
Era smiled sleepily back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A word to the wise...don't get too excited too soon?


	35. Chapter 35

Virgil didn't know what to say or do. If _Roman_ couldn't get Patton to see reason, who could?  
  
_"Please, Roman, I...I love you too, but I can't do this to you!"_ Patton pleaded.  
  
_"Can't do what to me, Patton? Whatever you fear may happen to me cannot possibly wound me more than I am already. The pain I feel at the thought of a life without you is akin to having been stabbed in the heart with the sword of Gryffindor-"_ Roman lamented.  
  
"Roman, shut up!" Virgil hissed.  
  
Roman turned to Virgil in confusion. Virgil knew that Roman did not understand what he said, but that wasn't what mattered. What mattered was that Roman actually _did_ as Virgil instructed, whether he realized it or not.  
  
Virgil, on the other hand, immediately turned his attention to Patton, who had his hands over his ears as a fresh wave of tears poured down his cheeks.  
  
Virgil had to think fast. He typed what he wanted to say as quickly as he could into his phone as he ran to Patton's side. He put one arm around Patton's shoulder, trying to ignore the lump that formed in his throat when he felt Patton _jump_ from the sudden motion.  
  
"Patton, breathe in for four seconds. 1, 2, 3, 4. Hold your breath for seven seconds. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Breathe out for eight seconds. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8," Virgil said through his phone. He knew this method wasn't foolproof. He knew that four seconds probably wasn't _quite_ four seconds when counted through his phone, nor was seven seconds actually a full seven seconds or eight seconds a full eight seconds. But it was something for Patton to focus on other than the horrific images that Virgil could only imagine passed through Patton's mind at Roman's words.  
  
Virgil gave Patton's shoulder a squeeze then pressed play again so that Patton could go through the breathing exercise a second time.  
  
As the phone was leading him through it, Virgil chanced a glance at Roman, who looked stricken. He seemed to have realized that _he_ had in some way triggered Patton, and now looked on the verge of tears himself.  
  
_Great, I really don't have time for this,_ Virgil thought. In no way did he blame Roman - he rarely thought before he spoke, and it wasn't unusual for Roman to exaggerate or use colorful descriptions to emphasize his point.  
  
It just so happened that he hit upon a _perfect_ trigger for Patton.  
  
If it was anyone's fault, it was Remus', for doing this to all of them in the first place!  
  
Still, Virgil's understanding of the situation did not change the fact that he was only one person, and could only do so much when _two_ people needed comfort at once.  
  
He was starting to feel overwhelmed, but he couldn't let _himself_ get overwhelmed, not when his friends needed him.  
  
He managed a small smile in Roman's direction, hoping to comfort Roman, but Roman cast his gaze downward soon after their eyes met, and Virgil's stomach lurched. _Dammit, I'm only one person, give me a break!_  
  
He felt _terrible_ for thinking that way, but it was just _so much_ and he needed help-  
  
_"Virgil? Roman? We heard a scream and we came as quickly as we could...Patton?!"_ Virgil heard Logan shout.  
  
Virgil pressed play on his phone again. Patton's breathing was more even, but he still wasn't out of the woods yet.  
  
Logan immediately ran to Roman, who looked about ready to bolt himself. Dee looked to Virgil, who nodded to Dee as if to say 'I got this, go help Logan'.  
  
Roman needed someone to talk to. Logan and Dee were better equipped for that job than Virgil was. Patton needed someone to talk to as well, of course, but they needed to get him to a state in which he _could_ talk first. If he was sobbing inconsolably to the point where he couldn't even catch his breath, that was hardly conducive to any productive conversation.

Now that Logan and Dee were on the scene, Virgil felt as if a huge weight was lifted off of his shoulders, and he could dedicate his full attention to comforting Patton.  
  
He had a feeling he would need the others' assistance with this task soon enough. Patton's reaction to Roman's words was merely a _symptom_ of something much larger, something that would take a lot more than breathing exercises to work through...  
  
\--------------------------  
  
Elliott, Astrit, and Paige looked up at the sound of the door opening. Chelsea stepped inside wordlessly, but held the door open as if _someone else_ were about to follow.  
  
The moment Era stepped through the door, Astrit and Paige both sprang to their feet and _ran_ to Era. Astrit threw his arms around his sister and Paige beamed. Era embraced her brother in return, and flashed a smile and a nod to Paige. Chelsea stood back, wanting to allow Astrit and Paige time with Era. Era might be Chelsea's partner, but she was Astrit's sister and Paige's best friend.  
  
Elliott smiled too, but Chelsea noticed that it didn't quite reach their eyes...and Chelsea suspected why.  
  
_"Has Shane showed any signs of...y'know...?"_ Elliott inquired.  
  
_"Not yet, but I'm sure he will soon,"_ Chelsea assured them.  
  
Elliott sighed. Chelsea couldn't blame them. Shane and Elliott were always closer to each other than anyone else in their friend group, and they'd even entered into a queerplatonic relationship recently.  
  
Chelsea hoped Elliott and Shane would be reunited soon, that Elliott would get to feel the relief and elation that Chelsea felt just moments before. They deserved it after all they'd been through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I projecting my own frustrations on characters? Noooo, I couldn't be...


	36. Chapter 36

Virgil and Patton were soon joined by Logan, Dee, and Roman. Virgil stepped away from Patton as Roman ran toward them, throwing his arms around Patton at once before pulling away, eying Patton as if to make certain that he was alright...physically speaking, at least.  
  
_"I apologize for my unfortunate word choice,"_ Roman told Patton.  
  
Patton shrugged, shrinking a bit under Roman's gaze. _"It's not your fault,"_ he told Roman. _"But at least now you see why we can't be together."_  
  
_"What?"_ Roman gaped. _"No!"_  
  
Patton sniffled. _"If we stay together I'm going to hurt you, and I don't want you hurt!"_  
  
_"You're not going to hurt anyone, Patton,"_ Logan told Patton in an even voice.  
  
_"Logan's right. I know you, Patton, and I know you're a bleeding heart who would bend over backward to do anything for those you care about,"_ Roman asserted.  
  
_"You don't know me well enough, then,"_ Patton replied. _"You don't know what's going on in my head..."_  
  
_"You're right, I don't. But I know someone who does,"_ Roman responded, then nodded to Virgil. Virgil held up a hand and waved to Patton.  
  
_"Virgil?"_ Patton frowned.  
  
Virgil nodded.  
  
Patton looked hopeful for a few seconds, but then a shadow came over his face and he shook his head. _"No, no, Virgil is a good person. He wouldn't think about..."_ Patton bit his lip to stifle a sob.  
  
"Throwing myself off of the Astronomy Tower in our fifth year?" Virgil suggested.  
  
Patton recoiled in horror. _"I knew you were frustrated, but I never would have thought you'd be driven to-"_  
  
"I wasn't," Virgil clarified.  
  
_"But you just said that you thought about doing it!"_ Patton protested.  
  
"I did," Virgil acknowledged.  
  
_"...I don't get it,"_ Patton frowned. _"And what does any of this have to do with me?"_  
  
_"Thought is not always a precursor to action,"_ Logan told Patton.  
  
_"But I shouldn't be thinking about these things in the first place! And I can't stop them! Any time I try, they get worse, and...and I think I'm going crazy and I don't want to hurt any of you when that happens,"_ Patton confessed, eyes misting up.  
  
_"You are not crazy,"_ Roman assured him.  
  
_"Then why can't I stop them?"_ Patton asked.  
  
_"Two reasons. One, I believe that your fervent attempts to forcefully ward off such thoughts result in you focusing that much more on said thoughts, and you are trapped in that feedback loop. This is common in mental illnesses such as obsessive-compulsive disorder as well as other anxiety disorders. Virgil would be able to tell you more about those, as he has much personal experience with the subject. That said, I do not think that you suffer from any of the aforementioned conditions,"_ Logan reasoned.  
  
_"I'm just a bad person, then,"_ Patton deduced.  
  
Logan shook his head. _"That is catastrophizing, another symptom of anxiety. I should clarify my previous statement. You are, undoubtedly, experiencing many symptoms of anxiety. That said, I do not believe that you fit the diagnosis for an anxiety disorder at this point, as I suspect that this is a temporary condition induced by something external, rather than your natural state."_

_"Something external? Like what?"_ Patton questioned.  
  
Logan furrowed his brow. _"I am uncertain, if I must be honest."_  
  
_"If I may?"_ Roman spoke up. _"This began after my so-called 'brief' disappearance in London, correct?"_  
  
Patton nodded. _"Ever since the ferris wheel..."_  
  
_"Ah yes. Virgil, Logan, and Dee told me all about the ferris wheel,"_ Roman huffed.  
  
Patton shot Roman a bewildered expression. _"They told...you were there, Roman. Or do you mean they told you what it looked like from the ground?"_  
  
"Dee wasn't on the ground, he was up with you," Virgil reminded Patton.  
  
_"...now I'm even more confused!"_ Patton glanced between Roman and Virgil in confusion.  
  
_"It is important that we note that all of this began with my disappearance, because it all but confirms who is responsible,"_ Roman told him.  
  
_"Responsible?"_ Patton frowned.  
  
_"Patton...this is my first time seeing you in ages,"_ Roman confessed.  
  
_"I know, and I wanted to keep it that way because I didn't want to hurt you!"_ Patton countered.  
  
_"No, no. Further back than that. The last time I saw you, my love, was that day in London. The 'Roman' you were with was actually my dastardly twin brother posing as me,"_ Roman informed him.  
  
Patton's eyes welled up with tears. _"You mean..."_  
  
Roman nodded.  
  
Patton sniffed. _"I couldn't even tell the difference between a stranger and my own fiance! I'm so sorry Roman..."_  
  
Roman's eyes went wide. _"No no no, that's not what I meant! He used his looks and his abilities against you in order to manipulate you, that is in no way your fault!"_ he insisted.  
  
_"But...I don't get what that has to do with my...er, the thoughts,"_ Patton told him.  
  
_"He's the one responsible for them,"_ Roman explained. _"I have no doubt that he read your mind and extracted exactly what he needed to torment you."_  
  
_"...did you just say that Remus is a Legilimens?"_ Dee stared.  
  
Roman nodded.  
  
_"This just keeps getting better and better,"_ Dee huffed.  
  
_"That still would not explain how the intrusive thoughts grew so prominent,"_ Logan noted. _"Remus could certainly have triggered them with odd comments and the like, but...well, if I didn't know any better, I would say that it is almost as if you have fallen victim to some sort of curse!"_  
  
Virgil's eyes went wide upon hearing Logan's words.  
  
_Curse_.  
  
Virgil hastily retrieved his phone from his pocket, hands racing over the keyboard as he input what he wanted to say. "I think I know how he's doing it."


	37. Chapter 37

The others turned to Virgil in surprise.  
  
_"You do?"_ Logan wondered.  
  
Virgil nodded. "You said it yourself, it sounds like a curse."  
  
_"You think Remus cast a curse on Patton?"_ Roman asked.  
  
"He didn't cast the curse. He took a page out of Dee's book," Virgil clarified.  
  
_"Excuse me?"_ Dee arched an eyebrow at that, folding his arms across his chest in a defensive stance. Then he looked over to Patton and his eyes slowly widened. _"Ohhhhh."_  
  
_"Oh? Care to clear things up for the rest of us?"_ Roman pressed.  
  
"You said all of this started with the ferris wheel, right Patton?" Virgil verified.  
  
Patton nodded. _"Yeah, it all started...oh no, he was responsible for the ferris wheel wasn't he?!"_  
  
"Yeah, but that's not what I meant," Virgil replied.  
  
_"If I hadn't suggested we go to the ferris wheel, if I'd seen that Roman wasn't Roman, all of those people hurt would be alright!"_ Patton fretted.  
  
_"I feel the need to remind you that you were not the only one taken in by Remus. The rest of us were fooled as well,"_ Logan reminded Patton.  
  
_"All of those people, though..."_ Patton shook his head. _"I brought Remus there. I did this to them, just as I thought all along."_  
  
_"You what?"_ Dee stared.  
  
_"It's my fault those people were hurt,"_ Patton lamented.  
  
_"...are we seriously going back to that again?"_ Dee groaned. _"Enough. Patton, take off your bracelet."_  
  
Patton appeared taken aback by the very suggestion, and even clutched the bracelet in question.  
  
_"Take off your bracelet!"_ Dee demanded.  
  
Patton looked _afraid_ rather than just hesitant, and Virgil knew that he had to step in. "Patton, you need to take off that bracelet."  
  
_"I can't!"_ Patton repeated. _"Roman gave it to me!"_  
  
_"Did he?"_ Dee arched a brow. _"When did he do so, if you don't mind me asking?"_  
  
_"Just before we went on the ferris-"_ Patton trailed off, his eyes slowly going wide as he realized what that implied. _"...this...Roman didn't give this bracelet to me, did he?"_  
  
Roman scowled. _"So that's what he did with the bracelet Delilah mentioned."_  
  
_"Patton, please remove the bracelet,"_ Logan instructed.  
  
_"Oh...okay...."_ Patton replied shakily, reaching for the bracelet around his wrist. He grabbed the bracelet with his other hand, and Virgil held his breath as he waited for the moment of truth.  
  
Eventually Virgil _had_ to breath. Patton remained frozen in place, and Virgil was starting to grow worried.  
  
_"Pat?"_ Roman advanced toward his fiance with a concerned expression.

_"Patton? Patton? Patton answer me!"_ Roman pleaded.  
  
Roman soon received an answer, but not the answer that he was hoping for. Patton screamed at the top of his lungs, scrambling backward. His eyes were glowing _green_, and so was the bracelet.  
  
_"It has to be an enchantment on the bracelet. The bracelet, being a curse item, can sense when it is about to be removed, and thus in its last hurrah will do anything within its power to ensure that it is not removed. I am willing to bet that Patton is currently trapped within the throes of an incredibly life-like illusion,"_ Logan surmised.  
  
_"...that's all fine and dandy, but how do we get him out of it?"_ Roman asked.  
  
_"We remove the bracelet, of course,"_ Logan replied evenly.  
  
_"Bravo Logan!"_ Dee announced, accompanying this statement with a slow clap. _"Now how do we do that without the bracelet getting all uppity and making things even worse for Patton?"_ Dee asked, hastily adding _"not that I care much, of course."_  
  
Which of course meant that Dee _did_ care in his own way.

Virgil could feel his heart begin to race as Patton continued to scream. He knew they needed to do _something_, but it was all too much, and this on top of everything that happened earlier? Virgil was getting overwhelmed, and he could not help but raise his hands toward his ears.  
  
_"Stupefy!"_ Roman shouted, pointing his wand directly at Patton. A red light burst forth from his wand and hit Patton. Patton's screaming ceased at once as he fell backward, completely unconscious.  
  
_"...what the hell was that?"_ Dee blurted out after a moment or so.  
  
Now that Patton's screams were no longer assaulting his senses, Virgil found that he could think more clearly. That said, he was still on edge, and he couldn't quite work out why Roman would _attack_ Patton unless...unless...  
  
Merlin _no_. He didn't want to deal with this anymore. He just wanted he and his friends to go home safe and sound. Was that too much to ask?  
  
_"Why did you attack Patton?"_ At least _one_ of the two brothers had the presence of mind to _question_ Roman on his actions.  
  
_"Attack?"_ Roman shot Dee a bewildered expression. _"I was trying to help him!"_  
  
_"Ah yes, I see now. I too commonly knock those I am trying to assist unconscious! Silly me,"_ Dee retorted sardonically.  
  
_"What else should I have done? Continue to let him suffer with whatever that blasted bracelet is forcing him to see? Maybe you want to see him suffer but I don't! He's already been through enough!"_ Roman snapped. Virgil immediately felt guilty for assuming the worst, but who could blame him after everything else they'd been through?  
  
Roman bent over, reaching for the bracelet around Patton's waist-  
  
_"Stop!"_ Logan commanded. Roman acquiesced, if only to gape at Logan in puzzlement at his sudden outburst. After all, this was the first time he _said_ anything since Roman used the Stunning Spell on Patton.  
  
It garnered the intended result, at least? 

_"What? Why? We need to get that bracelet off of Patton before he wakes up!" _ Roman insisted.

_"We do not need another person to fall victim to the bracelet's curse while we're at it, though,"_ Logan countered. He removed his tie, then held out his wand and incanted something. The spell transfigured his tie into a handkerchief, which he then positioned carefully over his hand to enable himself to safely remove the bracelet from Patton's wrist without ever touching it with his bare skin.

Once the bracelet was off of Patton's wrist, Virgil let out a huge sigh of relief.

_"Good riddance,"_ Roman muttered.

Instead of dropping the bracelet on the ground, Logan opted to wrap it tightly within the handkerchief and deposit it in his pocket.

_"The hell? Why are you taking it with you? Why not just leave the thing?" _Roman stared.

_"And let someone else happen upon it? Fantastic idea," _ Dee snorted.

_"Dee is correct. We cannot leave the bracelet here, no matter how tempting it may be. It would be irresponsible at best and dangerous at worst," _ Logan noted.

_"I suppose,"_ Roman frowned, though Virgil could tell that he was still worried. Virgil couldn't blame him, after what that bracelet did to his fiance. He reached over and gently pulled Patton into his arms, a determined expression on his face._"Let's get out of here. I've had enough adventure for one day."_

"Never thought I'd hear you say that," Virgil said with a wry grin.

_"Yes, well, there's a first time for everything,"_ Roman shrugged. _"To your mother's flat?"_

"To my mother's flat," Virgil acknowledge, and Roman apparated away with Patton still in his arms. Dee soon followed. Virgil placed his hand in Logan's and gave Logan a nod. He and Logan apparated away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did think about having the bracelet's last hurrah last a bit longer but...I figured I'd tortured them enough in this installment. Yes, I actually took pity on these poor souls for once. They should probably enjoy it while it lasts, lol. As you might have guessed, this installment is due to wrap up fairly soon, but I'm already brainstorming ideas for the next...


	38. Chapter 38

Sooooooo I have a couple of commissions to show you guys! This first one was done by @sparrowofsong on tumblr and is of Seth, August, and Toby!

This second one was done by @fangirltothefullest on tumblr and is of Virgil with his patronus!

Both of these artists did AMAZING jobs with these images and I hope you all enjoy them as much as I do!


	39. Chapter 39

Virgil barely had time to catch his bearings when Renilda and Professor Picani came running into the living room at the telltale pops that echoed through the flat as he, Dee, and their friends returned to the flat.  
  
They were pleased to see that Patton was both back and _safe_, and were glad to accept Roman and Patton as guests for the night. It didn't seem right for Virgil, Dee, Logan, Roman, and Patton to leave their other friends in the lurch, however. They filled the others in on what happened and what was _currently_ happening, and received the wonderful news that Era regained consciousness.  
  
Shane was still out, though, and no one was more worried about this fact than Elliott, who frequently waited at Shane's bedside.  
  
_"I don't want him to wake up to an empty room,"_ they would respond when the others checked in on them. The remaining four - Chelsea, Era, Astrit, and Paige - took turns keeping Elliott company on occasion as they waited at Shane's bedside with bated breath.  
  
It was a painful reminder that, although they made it through to the other side of this challenge in one piece, they weren't completely out of the woods yet. And no one at Renilda's flat knew that better than Patton.  
  
Patton woke up in Roman's arms that night. He confessed the next morning that he felt the safest he had in weeks.  
  
He also confessed to Roman what he saw just before Roman mercifully stunned him.

_"Spiders. They were everywhere, crawling all over me. Big, small, medium, all sorts of spiders,"_ he confessed.  
  
Roman pulled Patton in for a tight hug, reassuring him that he would do his darndest to keep Patton safe if something like this ever happened again.  
  
He didn't want to make promises that he could not keep. He knew that he could not promise that something like this would never happen again, because in all likelihood it would.  
  
Roman's parents still hated Roman, Patton, and their union. Delilah and Remus were still free. The Council was still a potential threat, and they'd heard _nothing_ of Dalibor in over a year.  
  
They faced a _lot_ of adversity, in other words, and Roman could not ignore that it existed. But doing everything in his power to keep Patton safe? That was a promise that he intended to keep. 

_"I'm going to talk to Professor Picani,"_ Patton admitted in a quiet voice, and Roman looked to him in surprise. _"I'm still having...I know I shouldn't be having the thoughts anymore...I'm not wearing the bracelet anymore, but I keep having nightmares about...does that mean that it wasn't the bracelet after all?"_

Roman shook his head without a second thought. _"It was definitely the bracelet."_

_"But I'm still having some of those thoughts and seeing some of those images and I'm not wearing the bracelet anymore!" _Patton pointed out.

_"Because the bracelet played up your worst fears and tormented you for weeks on end. It played upon your own sensitivities. Of course you're not going to get over that overnight,"_ Roman reasoned.

_"...so you don't think it's bad that I'm still having them?"_ Patton frowned.

_"Bad? If they're preventing you from enjoying a happy life, of course I think they're bad," _Roman replied. _"I just don't think that you're bad for having them."_

_"So you think it's okay to talk to Professor Picani about them?" _ Patton wondered.

_"I do. I could even accompany you to your first session with him, if you would like," _ Roman offered.

Patton smiled softly. _"I would like that a lot."_

\------------------------

Virgil and Dee had a conversation of their own, one that Virgil would not have envisioned a few years before - but Dee had come a long way from that point.  
  
So had Virgil, for that matter.  
  
_"I should have done something,"_ Dee said to Virgil, catching Virgil off guard.  
  
_"Said something?"_ Dee elaborated.  
  
With that, Virgil suspected he knew what Dee was getting at. "About Remus, you mean?"  
  
Dee nodded. _"About...you know what."_  
  
"About the fact that he was abandoned by his real parents and his adopted parents weren't caring for him properly?" Virgil guessed.  
  
Dee blanched at that. _"Yeah..."_  
  
"Wasn't much you could do, was there?" Virgil asked.  
  
_"Could have told someone,"_ Dee mumbled. _"Could have done something."_  
  
"You're lying," Virgil deduced.  
  
_"No I'm not,"_ he asserted stubbornly.  
  
"Yes, you are. You're lying to yourself," Virgil insisted.  
  
_"I am?"_ Dee blinked, clearly take aback.  
  
"Hindsight is 20/20," Virgil told him. "Lot easier to see everything that was wrong looking back. You were eleven."  
  
_"That isn't a child, though?"_ Dee huffed.  
  
"It's not an adult either, or even a teenager," Virgil noted.  
  
Dee sighed. He just...wondered how much might have been different had Remus grown up differently, and if _he_ could have played a role in that had he just spoken up.  
  
Then again, Virgil was right. He was _eleven_ at the time, and all he had were vague feelings of discomfort, that something was not _right_ about the situation.  
  
And even if he did say something, who would he have told? His father?  
  
If anything, that could have made things worse for both himself _and_ for Remus.

Leave it to Virgil to see the truth where he couldn't. Dee really did embody his old nickname, didn't he?  
  
Perhaps that was why he found it so difficult to go back to Lionel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...how did I manage to turn what I thought would be a happier chapter into more angst? (Yes, I know the answer is 'because I'm me', but still)


	40. Chapter 40

Instead of going back to their own home after staying at Renilda's flat for a few days, Patton and Roman decided to stay with Patton's parents for a while.  
  
_"Besides, the wedding's supposed to take place at their house anyway,"_ Roman reasoned. _"We'll just be heading over there a bit sooner than we originally planned."_  
  
A couple of _weeks_ sooner, but Virgil and the others could hardly blame Patton and Roman for wanting to give their home a wide berth for a little while after everything that happened with Remus.  
  
Chelsea, Era, Astrit, Paige, and Elliott had since moved from their safe house, and were now staying in a couple of rooms at the Leaky Cauldron. Elliott still kept vigil at Shane's bedside, but they now had a few new familiar faces keeping them company.  
  
Virgil and Logan visited Elliott together. Virgil felt immensely uncomfortable, unsure of what he could say or do that might help Elliott. Logan, therefore, did most of the talking.  
  
_"Have you considered bringing him to St. Mungo's?"_ Logan wondered. The words successfully extracted Virgil from his own thoughts and pulled him back into the conversation.  
  
Elliott stared at Logan with a bewildered expression. _"St. Mungos's? What for? He's just sleeping."_  
  
_"I would say that this goes a bit further than sleeping,"_ Logan gestured to Shane.  
  
_"You're the one who's called it an enchanted sleep multiple times,"_ Elliott pointed out.   
  
_"I have,"_ Logan acknowledged. _"Which is exactly why the phrase 'just sleeping' does not fit in this instance."_  
  
_"Sure it does,"_ Elliott asserted. _"We just have to give him a bit more time to wake up! The rest of us did!"_  
  
_"The rest of us awoke quite some time ago. Even Era, the last of us to regain consciousness, did so three days ago,"_ Logan noted. _"At this point I almost feel that we have to consider the possibility that he may not-"_  
  
_"Shut up,"_ Elliott cut Logan off.  
  
_"Pardon?"_ Logan blinked in surprised.  
  
_"I said shut up!"_ Elliott snapped. _"You think I haven't thought about that already?"_  
  
Logan cleared his throat. _"I see that my words do not provide much comfort to you."_  
  
_"Nope. In fact, they're doing just the opposite,"_ Elliott muttered.  
  
Virgil didn't have much to add to this conversation. As such, he was paying closer attention to Shane than the other two were. And as such, he noticed something that the other two didn't.   
  
"Have his eyelids always been twitching?" Virgil asked through his phone.  
  
Elliott and Logan turned to him in their surprise. _"Excuse me?"_ Logan asked.  
  
"His eyelids are twitching. I'm pretty sure they weren't when we first walked in," Virgil clarified.  
  
_"No...I've been watching him closely, for the most part,"_ Elliott admitted, not taking their eyes off of Shane even as they spoke to the other two. _"That's definitely new."_  
  
Shane let out a groan, and Virgil nearly fell out of his chair. In fact, were it not for quick action on Logan's part, he probably would have.  
  
Meanwhile, Elliott's eyes went wide, and they immediately leaned in closer. _"Shane? Shane, is that...are you awake? It's Elliott!"_  
  
Shane mumbled something, then cracked his eyes open slightly. _"Yes, yes, I'm awake. Sheesh. Can't a guy get a little rest without someone giving him grief?"_  
  
But he was smiling, and soon Elliott was leaning over him, pulling him into a hug.  
  
_"...I guess that answers one of my questions, sorta,"_ Shane snickered, pushing himself upward slightly so that he could return Elliott's hug.  
  
_"What question would that be?"_ Logan wondered.  
  
_"How long I was out for. Elliott's usually pretty stoic, so if they're reacting like_ this _to my waking up, I had to be out for a long time,"_ Shane surmised.  
  
_"It's been about a week, dumbass,"_ Elliott said, their face still buried in Shane's chest. _"Don't you ever do anything like that ever again."_  
  
Once Shane adjusted to his position and he and Elliott had a few more moments in which they could celebrate their reunion, Elliott, Virgil, and Logan proceeded to catch Shane up on everything that he missed.  
  
_"All of that happened while I was out? Man, I always miss the good stuff!"_ Shane lamented. _"Wait, there's one thing you didn't tell me - how did you end up taking out Remus in the end?"_  
  
"We didn't. We actually haven't seen him since he apparated away from Patton and Roman's place," Virgil admitted.  
  
_"...well crap,"_ Shane gulped.  
  
\-------------------------  
  
_"I can't believe I allowed you to talk me into this,"_ Delilah grumbled.  
  
_"Oh darling, don't pretend like I had to exert much effort,"_ Remus grinned. _"You were eager for revenge before I even opened my mouth!"_  
  
_"Of course!"_ Delilah hissed. _"I still can't believe you allowed your brother to get one over on you like that!"_  
  
_"Ha! That's rich, coming from someone who was so easily fooled by his acting!"_ Remus chortled. _"At least I actually put up a fight, you just let him waltz out the door!"_  
  
Delilah growled, retrieving her wand from her pocket and drawing it on Remus. She was already upset enough about that, she didn't need the constant reminders!  
  
Remus snickered, clearly not bothered in the least by Delilah's threatening posture. This only enraged Delilah further, and she was about to cast a spell when she heard the telltale sound of someone clearing their throat.  
  
Delilah immediately froze and stashed her wand back in her robes.  
  
_"Oh no no no, don't stop what you were doing on account of me! I actually found it rather entertaining!"_  
  
Delilah immediately looked to the doorway of the room that she and Remus were sitting in, but no one was there.  
  
A man's laughter echoed through the room, and Delilah tensed, starting to grow nervous.   
  
Remus, however, looked impressed. _"That's some expert level Legilimancy! Using the ability to talk to those you are using it on, I've only heard of a few practitioners who are that skilled! Your reputation really does proceed you, Mr. Peterson!"_  
  
The chuckle once more echoed through their minds, sending chills down Delilah's spine.  
  
_"Please, call me Dalibor."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the end of this installment! I've already written the first chapter of the next one, so you can look forward to that tomorrow!


End file.
